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  • 如何看待《原神》须弥前瞻短片 03 「明慧的序曲」?

    知乎每日精选 · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 11:18:24 +0800

    又是一波信息量巨大的预告!经过前瞻第一弹对草元素体系以及第二弹对须弥地理景观的展示后,这次到来的新预告短片《明慧的序曲》集中对须弥剧情背景、魔物以及即将登场的人物们进行了介绍,不出意外这应该就是前瞻短片最后一集,下一次就该是重磅的 3.0 前瞻直播了。好了废话也不多说,接下来就盘点一下本次预告的内容并适当拓展一些重点考据吧! ※ 文章内容比较多(约八千字),大家可以点击目录快速跳转查看自己感兴趣的内容。 一、「虚空」系统 预告首先对稻妻之行中由神子提供给旅行者的一个有关须弥的重要情报进行了回收,即「在须弥知识是作为一种资源被管理的」,而用来实现这一目标的工具是一种被称为「虚空」的神造系统。 「虚空」系统为前代草神「大慈树王」所遗留的遗产,即使前代草神早已在坎瑞亚战争中逝去,但此系统依然依托继承下来的神之心稳健的运作着。「虚空」系统外观上表现为近似蓝牙耳机一样的设备,每位须弥人都有佩戴(这可能是强制的)。目前已知的线索还不足以解读出「虚空」系统的实质和作用,不过结合「知识资源化」这一背景进行合理推测,似乎可以将「虚空」系统视为一种「综合情报管理系统」与「知识数据库」进行理解。 类比现实中进行学术研究时使用的学术期刊数据库(利如 ScienceDirect、Scopus、Wiley、知网等),须弥可能将有重要价值的知识存储在依靠神之心力量构建的巨型数据库中,当有须弥人需要使用这些知识时,可向系统发出申请,通过「付费」(即支付代价,但代价未必是金钱。从早先层岩剧情海迪夫的对话中也能看出大多须弥学者是视世俗金钱为粪土的)来向脑中载入所需的知识。 如果系统判定申请者已经失去了使用这些知识的资格,可能就会收回权限。对于现实中的我们而言,这不过意味着我们不能再用自己的账号从数据库中下载论文了,但对于须弥人,这可能意味着与他们脑部连接的「虚空」系统会直接将这些知识从他们的脑中抹去。 当然除了「下载知识」外,当教令院的学者研究出新的高价值知识时,也许他们可以像现实中科研工作者向期刊投稿一样,通过「虚空」系统向数据库上传知识进行共享。同样,就和现实中论文引用量是衡量一位科研人学界成就高低的标准一样,须弥学者们可能也会以自己上传的知识被大量用户申请调用作为一种光荣与自豪的象征。 不过侧面来看,既然「虚空」系统可以直接与脑部交互,这个系统某种意义上也是最强大的「监听」系统。前瞻中提到在如今的须弥小草神并不管辖国务,种种政务均由教令院处理,如果教令院中部分高层是作为剧情中的反派势力被塑造的,那么作为国家实际统治者的他们就可能利用「虚空」系统对民众进行控制,将一切不利于实现教令院目标的想法扼杀,这也许就是《足迹》预告 PV 中提到的「学者们的智慧正在催生愚行」的含义之一吧。 当然啦,以上这些内容也都是个人的一些大胆推测,大家看个乐呵就好,一切请以实际剧情为准。 考据:有关「虚空」 对了,这里还想对「虚空」这一名称进行一些简单考据。大家可能以为「虚空」所对应的英文是「Void」,但在英文版中,该词汇实际对应的翻译是一个会让各位感到非常陌生的单词「Akasha」。该词出自印度教与佛教文化,巴利文及梵语写作「ākāśa-dhātu」(天城体:आकाश),意为「空界」或「虚无界」,也可音译为「阿迦奢」,其是古印度五大元素、密宗六大元素之一 有关「空界」的含义,《佛说稻芋经》中提到:「何谓为空?能无障碍者,名为空界。」。空界,即指由虚空构成的界,是色聚之间的间隙与界线,其特征为无障碍。因为空界存在,人因此可以识别出每个色聚的不同(这部分涉及到比较深奥的佛学概念,理解不了也很正常,我也看不懂orz)。 简单来说,「空界」即是古代朴素哲学观中所理解的「物质与物质之间的空间」。这个词在 19 世纪后期也被西方神秘主义和招魂术所采用,用以代表象征精质与永恒的假想元素「以太」。在现代印度雅利安语和德拉威语中,该词则保留了作为「天空」的含义。 二、无梦的须弥 预告中提及的另一项重要剧情背景是「须弥人不会做梦」。这个个人推测与前代草神「大慈树王」关系不大,而与现任草神「小吉祥草王」息息相关。在 2.8 版本主线中,我们已经隐约得知小草神拥有的能力可理解为「读取思想,干涉现实」,这样一来是否可以认为:须弥人之所以不会做梦,正是因为人们的梦境被小草神取走,拿作他用了呢? 目前还难以推测小草神此番举动的目的,也许小草神是要集合人类梦的力量来抵抗某种威胁(譬如之前前瞻中提及的「来自沙漠力量的侵蚀」)?也许小草神与稻妻雷神一样因某桩事件埋下了心结,让她需要取走人们的梦境来满足自己(海岛剧情提到小草神并不自由,也很羡慕自由自在的人,这可能暗示了她不佳的处境)? 无论如何,如今的须弥人不但早已习惯了无梦的生活,甚至还认为无梦是一种「理性与智慧的象征」而对此非常自豪。然而,对于人类而言,从古至今「梦」往往都象征着一种伟大的力量,即无边无际的想象力,失去梦境真的会是一件好事吗?我并不这么认为。这也让我相信,「梦的回归」可能将是须弥主线故事的一个重要核心。 考据:前代草神「大慈树王」 这里聊一聊有关须弥前代草神的背景知识。与当代草神拥有称号「小吉祥草王」一样,前代草神也有其称号,叫做「大慈树王」(The Greater Lord Rukkhadevata)。 「Rukkhadevata」(天城体:रुक्खदेवता)一词出自印度教四教派之一的「湿婆教」(Shaivism,也音译为「希瓦派」)信仰,含义为「树之女神」(Tree-goddess;这里间接说明前代须弥草神也是女性)。 其实际上印度教、佛教和耆那教神话共同存在的人物「药叉女」(Yakṣiṇī,天城体:याक्षिणि;也译作「母夜叉」)的别称。药叉女常被崇拜为财富女神或修行者的守护神,当出现在《本生经》文献中时,她们被视为生活在树上的当地神灵,有时就称为 rukkha-devatā ,即树之女神。 考据:当代草神「小吉祥草王」 有关小草王称号的考据我在自己之前的文章里其实已经写过不少次了,这里就再搬运一遍吧。 英文版中「小吉祥草王」写作「Lesser Lord Kusanali」,其中「小」与「王」意思的对应关系清晰明了,「吉祥草」则显得比较奇怪,因为其并没有写作通常的英文名「Reineckea carnea」,而是写成了较奇怪的「Kusanali」。 「Kusanali」考虑应是源于古语言巴利语(Pāli-Bhāsā)的单词,原型词写作「Kusanāḷi」。巴利语是出现于约公元前 1500 年古印度地区的一种通用俗语(方言),「巴利」的含义乃是「佛陀的语言」或「圣典」,因相传其正是当年释迦摩尼四处说法时所使用的语言。 「Kusanāḷi」一词可拆分为两部分理解,其中「Kusa」意为吉祥草,而「nāḷi」则为「nāḷa」(茎部) 一词的副词形式。 需要注意的是,这里提到的「吉祥草」并非指生物学意义上的吉祥草(Reineckea carnea,又名「紫衣草」),而是强调宗教意义上的吉祥草,即「羽穗草」(Desmostachya bipinnata,又名「哈法草」),传说释尊在菩提树下成道时敷此草编织成的草席而坐,因此吉祥草在佛教中被视为圣草。 日语版本中,「小吉祥草王」则完全是对巴利语的片假名音译转写,「クラクサナリデビ」(kura kusanari debi) 对应「Khudda Kusanāḷi Devī」,意为「卑微的吉祥草女神」。 实际上「Kusanāḷi」也是个菩萨名,其出处为佛教寓言故事集《本生经》,这本古印度文学经典主要讲述了释尊成为佛陀前所经历的前世轮回故事,而 Kusanāḷi 正是佛陀的某一世轮回。具体所在篇目为第十三章「吉祥草品」一二一「吉祥草本生谭」,故事梗概如下: Kusanāḷi 是个草精灵(修炼成的菩萨),住在一个国王的花园,它和一位树灵是好友。有一天国王请木匠来修房顶,木匠想要把树灵那棵树砍了用来做梁,于是 Kusanāḷi 变成一只变色龙爬上树,让树看起来满是树洞。木匠们见这棵树上全是洞,以为树的木质不好,于是放弃了砍这棵树做房梁。这个故事体现的哲理是:即使力量弱小,也可以为朋友提供了不起的帮助。 三、沙漠的遗民「镀金旅团」 比较关注剧情细节的朋友应该不会对「镀金旅团」这个名字感到太陌生,在早前的活动「有香自西方来」中旅行者就已经从须弥人娜扎法琳口中听说了这一团体。在娜扎口中,镀金旅团似乎是一群「为了钱什么都愿意干」的雇佣兵,闯入他们的老巢则「十分危险」,是有着近乎盗宝团负面形象的团体。而这次预告短片则以更加正面的角度地对他们进行了介绍。 「镀金旅团」中的人们在外貌与装束上与须弥民众有着非常明显的差异,他们在事实上也并不接受须弥国家机构的强力管理,而是拥有自己的小片自治区域、作为民间自由团体「以力量与智慧讨生活」,也就是充当雇佣兵。这一现状与「镀金旅团」的出身有关,他们并非雨林的土著居民,而是来自须弥西部荒芜沙漠地带的移民民族。 相信观看过须弥前瞻第二弹《细雨与飞沙》的朋友一定对沙漠地区的奇景感到印象深刻,而围绕着沙漠存在一个巨大谜团:从此地残存的古代神庙遗迹以及大金字塔不难看出,沙漠古文明曾一度发展到极高的程度,那么究竟是什么摧毁了这个文明,让如今的沙漠仅留一地伤痕? 如今,在这些被黄沙逐渐掩埋的壮观遗迹中依旧游荡着先进的超文明机器,屠戮一切企图入侵者,而神殿中残存的一些奇异设备甚至会异化沙漠中不慎靠近的野兽,让它们变得更加危险凶猛。 从外观来看,沙漠文明机器虽与坎瑞亚机器外观存在相似之处,但也有较明显不同,加上制作组反复以「神性」、「超古代」等字眼称呼沙漠文明,我们似乎可以做出推测:沙漠文明拥有着比我们想象中悠久得多的历史,它们也许起源于远早于七神时代的提瓦特统一文明时代,即「第一王座」时期。 实际上,作为沙漠古文明的遗民存活至今的镀金旅团一族也很难不让人联想到稻妻的海祇民与白夜国文明,也许两者其实有着类似的遭遇,母文明因变故惨遭毁灭或抛弃,残存的子民因缘际会依附于新的七神秩序而得以幸存?这一切,就要等待未来须弥剧情为我们提供解答了,我也相信镀金旅团势力会在须弥的故事中扮演一个举足轻重的角色。 四、奇妙生物蕈兽 & 须弥异兽 早在层岩巨渊深邃的地底我们就已见识到了「蕈兽」这种奇妙生灵,而这一族群在其发源地须弥的环境中展现出更加丰富多彩的姿态,成为须弥雨林生态系统中极为重要的一环。 出于增强繁衍与保护菌群的目的,这些生长自须弥湿润泥土中的真菌族群开启了它们的加速进化过程,栖息在潮湿环境中的水蕈兽以及飘荡在林间、仿佛戴着魔法师帽的草蕈兽属于低级的小型蕈兽,比较常见;某些进化程度较高的蕈兽则在拟态上更进一步,表现出了很强的动物性,例如在雨林至深处的蕈菇之地,我们甚至能看到宛若孔雀的高级蕈兽。 虽然蕈兽们看起来或可爱或美丽,但千万不要被外表蒙蔽而对它们掉以轻心,这些领地意识极强的生物一旦泛滥将是危险程度极高的威胁,有记载显示,曾经就有名为阿尔瓦 · 尼古拉的学者在深入蕈兽地盘后,因行为不慎被发狂的菌群吞噬,最后尸骨无存(见雷深渊法师怪物图鉴)。 除了蕈兽外,须弥奇妙的雨林环境中也孕育了其他异兽,既有外观类似剑齿虎一样的猛兽,也有毛皮厚实、甚至身上长着蘑菇的林猪。这些生物将会是我们须弥旅途中一道有趣的风景线。 五、即将邂逅的友人们 新国度的冒险即将拉开帷幕,怎么少得了邂逅新的伙伴?相信不少朋友在早前就已经通过各种各样的渠道了解到了这些须弥新角色的信息(也有不少朋友是很无奈地被动接受了「爆料」),但我想说,我认为这次前瞻短片中展示的角色可比我早先看到的那些「泄露图」好看,也许是渲染的功劳?也许是带点心理作用?但有一条理肯定没错:多点等待,官方的永远才是最好的。 「巡林官」提纳里 学者型角色,隶属教令院「生论派」,如今担任巡林官一职驻守化城郭,负责巡视道成林一带。柯莱目前正在提纳里指导下进行着巡林员见习(插一句,之前的前瞻分析中我曾推测出现在须弥道路旁的奇异植物很可能是须弥的特色路灯,这下夜景画面出现,总算是验证猜想啦)。 注:「提纳里」(Tighnari)一名的原型为生于安达卢西亚地区(现西班牙境内)的阿拉伯农学家、植物学家、诗人、旅行者和医师泰格纳里(Al-tighnari,生卒年不详),其最出名之处是撰写了一篇名为「Zuhrat al-Bustān wa-Nuzhat al-Adhhān」(字面意思为:花园之荣耀与心灵之娱乐)的农学论文,文中描述了他的前往中东的旅程并分享了对于农学和其他一些主题的看法。 「海港学者」艾尔海森 出身教令院「知论派」、身材高大相貌英俊的灰发男性,旅行者将在须弥南部海港「奥摩斯港」与这位艾尔海森先生邂逅。看起来就很可靠的他不知将为旅行者的须弥之行提供怎样的协助? 注:艾尔海森(Alhaitham)其名的原型为阿拉伯著名学者、物理学家、数学家「伊本 · 海什木」(Ibn al-Haytham,965-1040 年),中文也译作「海桑」、「哈金」等。这位学者有大量著作和被现代科学证明了的科学发现,尤其在光学研究方面有突出成就,著有《光学之书》、《光论》、《有关托勒密的疑点》等。 「雇佣兵」迪希雅 出身沙漠民族、小麦色皮肤的飒爽御姐,隶属「镀金旅团」的雇佣兵,目前正停留在雨林与沙漠边界的一处旅团哨点中。 注:「迪希雅」(Dehya)之名应该源自「迪亚」「Dihya」,是历史上一位柏柏尔族(Berbers;是生活在西北非洲的、说闪含语系柏柏尔语族语言的部族统称,今日该族后裔主要分布在阿尔及利亚)女王与著名宗教军事领袖,她曾团结整个北非的土著力量、领导人民抵抗 7 世纪阿拉伯帝国倭马亚王朝军队对北非马格里布(Maghreb;非洲西北部一地区,为柏柏尔人的原乡,名称意为「日落之地」)的入侵。尽管最终兵败,北非也被完全征服皈依伊斯兰教,但这位传奇女王的事迹却传颂了下来,被后世抗争的柏柏尔人视为「抵抗侵略」、「捍卫自由」的象征。 由于在战场上出色的指挥表现,迪亚深受当时的阿拉伯军队忌惮,穆斯林将领们甚至认为这位女王掌握着预知未来的巫术,因而给她起了一个阿拉伯语绰号「卡希纳」(Al-Kahina),意为「女祭司」或「占卜者」。 「舞娘」妮露 充满异域风情、善于舞蹈的美丽红发少女。在全民崇尚智慧与理性的须弥,少女却选择另辟蹊径,追求艺术与舞蹈上的成就。可想而知,这并不是一条容易走通的道路。 注:「妮露」(Nilou)一名是波斯名「妮露法」(Niloufar)的昵称,含义为「莲花、睡莲」,是个很漂亮也很可爱的女孩名。 「神秘少女」纳西妲 《神秘少女》……哈哈,看来官方这里还是想卖个关子,我也不剧透了,相信不少朋友也早就知道这位少女的真实身份了吧?虽然还未曾正式谋面,但其实咱们已经跟她说过话了。 注:「纳西妲」(Nahida)这个名字可颇有来头。虽然词汇本身确实可作为蝴蝶科 Riodinidae 下的一个属名来使用,但这里主要是化用自古代波斯琐罗亚斯德教(不拗口、大家也更熟悉的叫法是拜火教)信仰中代表生育、丰产与智慧的女神「安娜希塔」(Anahita)。 不知道大家还记不记得开在稻妻离岛的须弥特产店「葱茏之愿」?店主瓦希德时常推销的产品「丰沃之惠」就是一种能使再贫瘠的土地都可变得适宜耕种的神奇肥料,原理被解释为小吉祥草王力量的恩惠,而其英文名正叫作「Anihitian Blessing」,直译便是「安娜希塔的祝福」。 另外根据一些学者的说法,「安娜希塔」在印度-伊朗时代(Indo-Iranian times,指公元前 1500 - 公元前 500 年)对应的神性名称应为「萨拉斯瓦蒂」(Sarasvatī),也就是说这位女神可能与印度教神话中萨拉斯瓦蒂河的水神、同样象征智慧的「辩才天女」(也叫「妙音天女」)系出同源。 「大风纪官」赛诺 总预告篇《足迹》PV 中作为须弥地区代表人物出场的少年,相比当时的形象,如今的赛诺在人物设计上已经变得更加复杂华丽,想必这也是为了匹配本次短片中公开的赛诺非同一般的身份 ——「大风纪官」(推测应该是受教令院委派管辖沙漠地区的治安长官)。 注:「赛诺」(Cyno)一名推测来源于拉丁语前缀「Cyno-」(古希腊语词源「κύων」,含义为犬),这可能是指他的服装类似于古埃及神话中的胡狼头死神「阿努比斯」(Anubis)。事实上,根据场景前瞻中沙漠地区出现的包括方尖碑与金字塔在内的标志性建筑结构,已基本可以确认须弥沙漠地区设计时参考的文化原型很大概率为古埃及文明。 短片中所提的赛诺官职名「大风纪官」英文版写作「Mahamatra」,该职务最早由古印度孔雀王朝皇帝阿育王(Aśoka)设立,全称为「Dhaṃma Mahāmātā」,意即「佛法督察」。他们是负责国家行政及司法等各个方面的高级官员,由国王授予弘扬佛法、监察宗教工作以及裁判道德问题的神圣职责,被认为是阿育王统治集团中的重要组成部分。 带有鲜明古埃及文化元素的赛诺,其官职却出自古印度文化背景,由此推测赛诺应该是沙漠民族在须弥雨林政权中的代表人或者说沟通桥梁,因而被授予了很高的地位。 六、教令院六学派 文章最后一部分来和大家聊聊由角色介绍引出的对于须弥教令院六大学派的讨论。 细心的朋友应该注意到,编剧老腰老师介绍须弥角色时在板书上写下了一系列学派与角色的对应关系,有关这些学派,其实在早先游戏剧情中就已经提供了相关的信息(主要是与须弥学者胡塞尼相关的系列活动剧情),结合起来我们可以知晓教令院下属的六大学派分别为:「生论派」、「知论派」、「明论派」、「素论派」、「因论派」,以及板书中未写上的「妙论派」。 针对学派的考据我们可以由「学派」一词本身对应的翻译开始着手,可以注意到,游戏文本中「六大学派」对应的英文说法并非常见的「The Six Schools」,而是「The Six Darshans」。其中的专有名词「Darshans」是出自古代印度教的概念,意指古印度正统古典哲学(即源于婆罗门教的「正统派」,Āstika;与之对应的「异端派」称为 Nāstika,佛教与耆那教皆属此类)的六个哲学派别。六派哲学(Ṣaḍdarśanas)具体划分如下: 弥曼差派(Mimāṃsā) 吠檀多派(Védānta) 数论派(Sāṃkhya) 胜论派(Vaiśeṣika) 正理论派(Nyāya) 瑜伽派(Yóga) 这还不是教令院六大学派包含的全部文化背景。根据各学派在英文版中的写法,我们还能发现它们的另一层文化原型,即涉及琐罗亚斯德教(拜火教)善恶二元论哲学中的善神信仰: 例如,提纳里隶属的学派「生论派」英文版就写作「Amurta」,根据读音不难发现其对应从神中代表永恒与不朽的植物女神「阿梅雷塔特」(Ameretat)。在层岩巨渊雇佣探险队的学者海迪夫也属此学派,根据志琼的介绍,这一学派主要研究方向是矿产学与生物生态学。 以此类推,艾尔海森所属的「知论派」英文写作「Haravatat」,对应从神中代表完美的水之女神「豪而挝逹」(Haurvatat),根据胡塞尼的介绍,这个学派主要研究古代符文,其成员稀少并且言谈古怪。胡塞尼自己所属的「素论派」(Aramati)对应代表谦敬的土地女神「阿尔麦蒂」(Armaiti),该派别主要以元素和地脉为研究对象。另外在 2.7 版本活动「深泥奇谭」中胡塞尼提到了「妙论派」(Kshahrewar),这个不太好直接看出原型,由其读音可知对应代表权威的金属神「克沙特拉 · 外利雅」(Khshathra Vairya),研究方向可能与冶炼锻造有关。 至于剩余的两派「明论派」与「因论派」,目前游戏中还未有提供相关信息,但不难推测它们应当分别对应善灵神「沃胡 · 摩那」(Vohu Manah)与真理神「阿莎 · 挝西史达」(Asha Vahishta)。 到这里应该有朋友发现,拜火教善神除去主神「阿胡拉 · 马兹达」(Ahura Mazda)外仍有七位,在数量上与六大学派无法对应,这又是怎么一回事呢?这点大抵可以联系「古时孤影」活动中胡塞尼告诉旅行者的一段话「你毕竟还没有领会过至高智慧的熏陶」来进行解释。 我们可以认为所谓「至高智慧」对应着拜火教神话中的创造神「阿胡拉 · 马兹达」(其名含义即为「光明智慧之主」,Lord Wisdom;在须弥背景下应该就是代指草神),又有说法指出七位从神中象征圣灵的神「斯奔逹·麦纽」(Spenta Mainyu)真身乃是阿胡拉 · 马兹达的化身,因此这二神可被视为一体进行看待,这样就解开了数量无法对应的问题。 顺带一提,目前游戏内容中还提到了教令院系统中的三种身份:其一为代表校外实习生的「帝利耶悉」(Dervish),原型为波斯语「德尔维希」(Darvīsh),意为乞讨者、托钵僧,是伊斯兰教苏非派的一种苦行修士;另外两种分别为地位不同的学者职称「陀裟多」(Dastūr)与「诃般荼」(Hērbad),这两者原型都是琐罗亚斯德教中的祭祀职位。 结语 经历《神奇的草元素》、《细雨与飞沙》与《明慧的序曲》这三轮预告,相信大家对即将到来的须弥已经有了一个全方位的了解(我都怀疑到正式前瞻直播时大伟哥还有什么可以说的了2333),胃口肯定也已经被吊得足足的了。 如何看待《原神》须弥前瞻短片02——细雨与飞沙 ?如何评价《原神》游戏官方发布的须弥前瞻短片 01 《神奇的草元素》? 旅行者在时隔一年后终于就要踏上前往新国度的旅途,这一年来游戏的进步各位也是有目共睹,就让我们一起期待 3.0 大版本会带来怎样巨大的惊喜吧! 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 呆罗 点击下载 108 个回答,查看全部。 你对《原神》须弥篇的插曲设计有什么看法? 如何评价《原神》须弥前瞻短片明慧的序曲提到须弥将知识作为资源来管理?这是否说明须弥在内涵印度阶级固化?

  • 创作者请回答|伞阿花伞大王:那些辞职写小说的人,后来都怎么样了?

    知乎每日精选 · Fri, 29 Jul 2022 14:52:05 +0800

    好久不见友友们! 局长猜,很多爱看故事的知友们,一定都曾有一个文学梦。毕竟这年头,做一个打工人又苦又累,谁不想做自己喜欢的事情呢?如果恰好这份喜爱能给自己带来收入,那就更好不过了。 盛夏来临,局长请到 @伞阿花伞大王来聊一聊,那些辞职写小说的人,后来都怎么样了? 95 年出生在吉林的伞阿花伞大王(以下简称伞大王,关于这个笔名,文末有揭密哦~),大学是在延边大学攻读的朝鲜语系,毕业后去了一家游戏公司当翻译。 这看起来是一个顺理成章的决定,然而工作一年后,她选择了离职,来到知乎从事起了小说创作。 这在当下的年轻人群体中不算新鲜,毕竟灵活就业、整顿职场,炒掉老板鱿鱼,追逐文学理想,惊艳全世界,想想就很激动。 不过,现实也很骨感。 写的小说,并不是所有读者都买账,尤其遇到较真的人,还会直接批评,倘若作者是个玻璃心,说不定就直接封笔了。 尤其是网文作者,被催更更是家常便饭,但是没有灵感怎么办,难道要去写水文应付读者吗? 这些问题,伞大王都遇到了,而她选择的是「躺平」与「耗着」。 伞阿花伞大王的知乎主页 表面躺平,实则坚持自我 和很多文字创作者一样,伞大王从小就比较偏科,语文、历史这些课程都在自己的天赋树上被点亮了,而数学之类的理工类科目则是完全不擅长。 作为天生的文科选手,伞大王人生的第一篇作品应该是在小学六年级写成的,当时构思了一个关于一群螃蟹的故事。 大意是讲一群正被运往饭店的螃蟹,一路上它们怨声载道、叫苦连天。 这时候,螃蟹里的主角螃蟹站出来发声说:「难道我们就要这样接受自己的命运吗?」 其他螃蟹就反问:「还能怎么办呢?我们都被关在笼子里。」 主角螃蟹说:「我们是螃蟹呀,我们有蟹钳,钳断笼子,团结起来就能跑。」 然后这些螃蟹就跑到了大街上,非常显眼,大街上的小猫小狗就和螃蟹们说:「你们不能这样横着走路,太显眼了,很快就会被抓走的。」 但是主角螃蟹却说:「不对呀,我们是螃蟹,螃蟹,天生就得横着走。」 然后他们就横着离开了。 这篇小说虽然没有什么太复杂的细节,但是老师看后很是欣赏,也给了伞大王不少鼓励,或许就是从这一刻开始,写作的种子算是埋下了。 而通过这篇习作也可以看出伞大王的性格——向往自由、坚持自我。 可即便如此,成为专职作者后,伞大王居然也差点被读者怼到怀疑人生。 伞大王说:「我特别玻璃心,我是真的经不起批评,我特别怕读者骂我。」 最近,伞大王就接到一位读者的私信,说最近的作品不是很让人满意,甚至被直接评价为「有失水准」。 伞大王起初也慌了,还去问了朋友,以及圈内其他作者,问了一圈后,她自己却想明白了,「作品本来就该百花齐放,我的作品不是有失水准,只是不符合个别读者的预期而已,或者我笔下的人物不够完美,可能有道德缺陷,但不代表就要剥夺他成为主人公的权利。」 所以,伞大王在面对质疑的时候,都是虚心接受读者建议,不惊不辱,然后专心躺平就完了。 毕竟,下次自己还会该怎么写还怎么写。「你在教我做事咩?」 表面耗着,实则拒绝糊弄 除了被读者质疑,写文的人更怕的事莫过于文思枯竭,尤其对于写网络文学的,一旦文章更新不及时,读者肯定是要过来「提刀催更」的。 不过伞大王的读者倒是很少催更,因为大家都比较了解伞大王的是走灵感创作的路线,而且就算催,也是没用的。 「我等一个灵感需要等很久,但是如果这个灵感出现了的话,我构思起来,其实是很快的,而且只要是灵感来了,我在哪儿都能写作。」 伞大王所说的灵感,有时候可以靠做梦,据她讲述,有一天半夜两三点钟自己做了一个梦,半夜醒来,天还没亮,她觉得自己做的这个梦可真牛,如果是自己清醒的状态下,肯定想不出来,于是爬起来把这个梦记录了下来,在今后的创作中作为素材。 伞大王对自己的日常创作没有明确要求,不像其他网文码字狂魔,每天一定要完成多少字,她甚至没有大纲,而是纯靠灵光乍现,而且灵感不够的主要原因不是在自己,而是在于笔下的人物本身。 「我觉得对于我个人来说,可能因为我的性格本身就是这种比较慢吞吞,所以我如果灵感枯竭,我的应对方法就是耗着。我需要故事里的人来告诉我,他想干什么。我一直觉得,我写出来的故事,其实不是我写的,而是角色借着我写出来的。有的时候,他可能就不想告诉你这个时候他想干嘛,那我能怎么办呢?」 这是高手啊!此番观点听起来过于玄妙,令人无法反驳。 伞大王会这么想,也是源于读者们对她给予了包容与耐心,这反而让她觉得不能糊弄读者。 「我经常几个月出一篇稿子,但是催我的人很少。所以我就觉得我也应该拿出同样的耐心去面对我的作品。如果真的有一天我不再去听这些角色的声音了,而是我按照市场的标准去写去写,三天一篇,五天一篇,那样去写的话。我觉得渐渐的我也会消磨读者对我的信任,那个时候就完全变成供求关系了。我的作品对他们来说可能一下就变成了一种商品。然后对他们而言,我可能一下子就变成了一个急着赚他们钱的人。 如果真是那样的话,我觉得也挺得不偿失的。」 苏童是真爱,马伯庸是典范 无论是躺平还是耗着,可以看出伞大王这位作者足够有个性。 而更令人意外的还在后面。 作为一名专写言情作品的网络作家,伞大王一般在「如何以长公主权倾朝野为开头,写一篇故事?」「如何以他说要娶我,予我凤冠霞帔,不曾想到头来却食了言为开头写一篇不是为虐而虐的虐文?」 这类知乎问题下非常活跃,许多读者看她的文章也会贴上小甜文、小虐文之类的标签。 但是伞大王自己的日常阅读涉猎,其实并没有完全陷在网络文学的世界里,偶尔她还会在知乎发表一些读后感,带领大家一起阅读名家名作。 当问起伞大王除了自己日常写作之外,还喜欢看哪些作家的书,伞大王回答的却是苏童、余华、梁实秋这些主流传统的作家。 她不是没想过要向严肃文学的方向发展,但是自觉人生阅历还比较浅薄,写不出太厚重的东西。而且她也不赞同,成为经典的文学就一定是厚重的、佶屈聱牙的,比如马伯庸的作品,就既能兼顾严肃,同时也不失趣味,这也是她非常喜欢的作家。 但是她不喜欢的,可就惨喽。往往会成为她笔下的反派人物! 伞大王一直强调,无论做什么、写什么,都要基于实践。这就像很多人说的写作要遵循一定逻辑,这个逻辑就是真实的生活经验。 有一次她回家,看到妈妈正准备蒸螃蟹,那些螃蟹虽然有钳子,但都是被绳子绑起来的,钳子丝毫没有用武之地,根本不像自己小学时写的小说那样机智威武。 伞大王这才明白,无论你要输出什么观点,必须自己先去经历一番才立得住脚,「不是你看了什么脱口秀大会、奇葩说,觉得某个人说得真好,你就把这个当成自己的观点去传播,其实未必适合你自己。」 同样的,对于爱情也是如此。伞大王的小说,虽然塑造了各类爱恨纠葛的故事,但其实很少说教,当读者去问自己有关爱情方面的问题时,她也不会直接拿自己的经验去做建议。 她打了个比方,「作为一个女性,如果她被爱情欺骗过,她肯定会告诉你恋爱要谨慎。但如果一个人她因为胆怯,最后错过了真爱,那她肯定告诉你恋爱就是要勇往直前。这两种爱情观哪一个是正确的呢?其实都没有问题。」 伞大王不相信什么所谓的爱情观。因为没有统一的标准,每个人的爱情观都是不同的,就像每个人的写作风格、写作方式也都是不同的,但重要的是在于,你选择一段恋爱,一定是因为你在某个阶段的状态还不错,你有勇气、有能力去开展一段恋爱,你会因为这段恋爱变得更加充盈和自信。 所以,她时常对有情感困惑的读者这样建议:爱人,更当爱己。 PS:伞大王笔名大揭秘 读过《见鹿》这篇作品的读者一定对「丑又萌饿但肥」这位作者不会陌生,其实「丑又萌饿但肥」就是「伞阿花伞大王」。 当年,伞大王注册知乎的时候,同步的是自己的微信昵称,于是最早使用的笔名是「丑又萌饿但肥」,但是久而久之,一些读者关注到之后称呼作者为阿丑、阿肥,伞大王觉得不太好听,于是就重新起了现在的笔名。 她的理想生活,一直是觉得人的脑袋上应该戴着一朵花,然后到深山老林里当一个野人。但是叫山大王似乎也不太适合一个女孩子,干脆用了谐音梗,于是就有了今天的伞阿花伞大王~ 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 故事档案局 点击下载

  • CTP、CTC 和 CTB 三种电池底盘技术方案区别是什么?哪个更有发展前景?

    知乎每日精选 · Fri, 29 Jul 2022 11:40:44 +0800

    CTP/CTC(CTB),实际就是动力电池的集成度走高的一种趋势。我们现在动力电池装车最主流的方式还是Cell to Module:单体电芯组成模组,模组组成箱体,箱体组装成系统,然后系统装车。 如下图所示,电芯组成模组,多个模组一起集成PACK,PACK组成系统,装载在汽车底盘上。 这种模式沿用了很多年,技术成熟,工艺可靠。电芯作为最里层的动力源,被一层又一层的外壳保护得很好。 但其中有个弊病就是电芯到模组到箱体到系统再到装车,工序多、外壳占用空间多,那么能否省掉其中的工序,就能降低加工成本且提高空间利用率,在企业盈利提高的同时还能有效提高车辆续航,岂不是两全其美的事情。 所以,CTM→CTP→CTC(CTB),就这么一步步走下来。 电芯作为能源中心,被层层包裹(模组/箱体),这种传统物理架构的空间利用率偏低,设计良好的方形电芯的系统成组率大概可以达到65-70%,而圆柱形电芯的系统成组率大概只有55-60%。 CTM现阶段依旧是最成熟的电池包架构,市面上大部分新出的电动车型依旧采用的这种架构。 上汽大众ID.4X的电池包,由8个模组(多个电芯组成一个模组)构成,模组之间用高压铜排连接,有着隔热、阻燃设计。 CTP(Cell to Pack) 无模组模式,直接取消了传统模组,多个电芯直接组成PACK,如比亚迪的刀片电池等,PACK装载在汽车底盘上。 比亚迪将正极片、负极片,先模切裁断成单片,在隔膜中按照设定的层数叠成极芯,并通过热压将极片与隔膜固定。极片长度约1000mm,条状的正负极片,需要有序地插入折叠隔膜里,这对工艺要求是十分苛刻的——极片需要平整地插入,同时要保证插入的深度,需要刚刚好。 比亚迪的CTP无模组方案,电芯实际充当了模组,而取消了模组的保护壳体,由刀片电池本身来充当电池的梁,这样大幅提高了空间利用率,也提高了系统能量密度(单位体积装更多的电芯。) 同样的,宁德时代也推出了CTP模式。 2022年3月,宁德时代推出了CTP3.0(麒麟电池)。 根据资料,采用 CTP 3.0 技术的 LFP 电池能量密度可达 160Wh/kg,NCM 电池则可达 250Wh/kg;若比较最新的 4680 系统,宁德时代称 CTP 3.0 技术可以在相同的条件下,提升 13%的能量密度。 由此可见,CTP是从架构更改中着手,有效提高电池系统能量密度,让同样重量、体积的电池系统可以提供更高的续航,让更多的电动乘用汽车可以达到1000公里续航的标准。 5月份的新闻,宁德时代的CTP技术也开始推向了国外的商用车型。 虽然无模组方式有很多优点,但这样的无模组也意味着取消了模组的保护(如去掉了边梁等),外来的冲击原本是由模组来承担,现在则需要电芯本身来承受冲击力,对于电芯的安全保障是下降的。现在厂家的方法是在电芯材质和构造上提升强度,比如铝型材直接挤压成型等。另外电池集成度越高,也就意味着后续的维护、保养、更换需要的成本就越高。 CTC(Cell to chassis) 直接电芯集成(一体化)到汽车的底盘上。以特斯拉为例,CTC的电芯成组,上面就是地板(电芯外壳)和座椅横梁,和底盘集成一体,然后再装配在车身上,这样可以利用电芯本身的机械构造来承担一部分框架的作用,能有效减少电池包的体积,增加空间利用率。 CTC技术除了能间接降低车身重量,提高电池包空间利用率这些好处外。关键又能和利益扯上关系,因为一体化集成,减少了大量的焊接(连接)工序,从而提高了生产效率,减少了中间的机器人,这就能降低成本。 据特斯拉的相关数据,CTC+一体化压铸,可节省370个零件,车重下降10%,电池结构体积-10%。 不过本来圆柱体的电芯在成组的空间利用率上就比不过方形电芯(圆柱叠加圆柱,之间不可避免有多处空隙),设计好的方形电芯成组的空间利用率可以达到80%以上,而4680(圆柱体)+CTC的成组空间利用率大概只有70%以上。 但集成度高的CTC也有弊端,类比特斯拉,电池和底盘集成一起,一旦电池有问题了,就是要动底盘了,对动力电池售后的维护/维修就不是很友好了。 因为集成度高,电池组的上盖又做了车身地板,一旦电池组需要维修,预计价格会比现在的更加昂贵。 CTB(Cell to Body) 和CTC的电芯集成到底盘上类似,CTB是把电芯集成到车身上,实际两者的意思大致相同。 比亚迪的CTB技术,车身地板和电池上盖集成,下方就是电芯。 至于比亚迪宣传的,CTB技术能够提高整体能量密度,提高舒适性,操控性,还能提高安全性:刀片电池能作为车身架构的一部分,并承受车辆碰撞产生的部分伤害,有效避免人员的伤害。但这样的架构改变对于电池的安全是否有负面影响,个人觉得还是需要后续市场的实际反馈。 运用CTB技术的比亚迪车型是今年发售的海豹系列。 在汽车上,走高度集成的路线不止是电池系统,也见于新能源车的各个方面,比如新能源车的电子电气架构(EEA)的集成。 随着智能自动驾驶和智能座舱的发展,传统的基于ECU的分布式电子电气架构势必要向域集中的电子电气架构发展。汽车芯片通过整合,比如将从多个ECU收集的数据在同一个域控制器中统一处理,比如将上百个ECU浓缩到数个DCU或MCU里面。 EEA的发展,从分布式到域集中到域融合,到车载电脑和区域导向架构,到最终的车辆云计算的电子电气架构,实际也是走着高度集成化的道路。 所以说,哪种更有发展前景,肯定是集成度越高(保障安全和实用效果的前提下)的CTC/CTB代表着未来。但这也并非意味着现阶段的CTC/CTB是成熟的技术,毕竟车企的宣传肯定是往好的说的。具体怎么样,是否在保障安全的背景下提高了集成度,还是得看市场上真实的数据反馈了。 (图片来源网络,侵删!) 参考资料: 1、https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1728815096196215614&wfr=spider&for=pc 2、https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1734248045242012773&wfr=spider&for=pc 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com Will.liu 点击下载 3 个回答,查看全部。 CTP、CTB、CTC是电池技术革新,还是一种无奈? 如何评价宁德时代 CTC 一体化锂电池技术?

  • 为什么有些人把游戏当信仰?

    知乎每日精选 · Thu, 28 Jul 2022 16:41:17 +0800

    首先简单做个自我介绍,我是波士顿大学宗教专业学士学位,现就读与纽约大学宗教研究硕士学位的学者。可以叫我流影或者AdolShadow。 很喜欢笔者的这个问题。大家其实都会觉得,虚拟这种东西如何能被称之为信仰?或者说,游戏如何自成宗教体系?我的大学毕业荣誉论文中就讨论了游戏与宗教世界的关联。以及他们有何现实生活有什么样的丝缕联系。 简单来说,我们不能主观或者简单的把游戏和宗教或者信仰直接放在一起。或者甚至说把信仰和宗教放在一起都是不准确的。宗教社会学家William Paden和Peter Berger说,人创造了社会,社会创造了我们所在的世界。这个世界可以是基于科学的,也可以是基于任何概念的。重点是他们都是人为创造的。所以说,社会才是核心,而社会之上的创造物,本身都是可以改变,价值也不会是永恒不变的。 信仰在我个人看来则不同。我认为信仰是基于个人的产物。所有人的信仰皆可不同。同是基督教徒的我和我父母,信基督教的方式可能完全不一样。我们是个体,虽然在教堂这样的体制下我们需要遵守规矩,但是在私下,我的信仰和表现方式可以和别人大相径庭。这是我自己的看法。社会学家则会通常认为这也是社会产物。 前两天我刚在知乎产出了我的第一篇文章,讲的就是我毕业论文的一些历程。这里摘抄一部分,可以更好的解释笔者的这个问题。原文link:AdolShadow:第一次在知乎发文,聊聊我的大学荣誉结业论文:论虚拟世界与宗教世界构造的相似处 简单说说我在文章里的一些概括。想看我的完整毕业论文可以移步原文。 各位如果是游戏玩家,不妨仔细想想。为什么随着游戏种类的变多,可玩性变得更强,“宗教”却成为了中西中不可或缺的一部分。就不用说早期的刺客信条兄弟会或者瘟疫传说无罪这样的典型基督教占主导地位的游戏。只狼这样的佛教占主导地位的游戏。想想看,连我现在沉迷的原神也是采纳了非常多的神秘学元素。另一款我最近玩的很多的怪物猎人崛起也是将日本传统的鬼神文化开发到了极致。那么,如果说游戏被创立的初衷是一个科技的产物。而科技本身与宗教又有着一定的对立性,毕竟科技源自科学,是准确和新时代的代名词。那现在这样宗教题材泛滥的游戏岂不是有点本末倒置的意思? 其实这也不然,再写结业论文之前我也尝试过许多其它题材关于宗教与游戏的论文。写多了便发现上面这个问题的切入点有问题。我们总觉得这好像是对立的,所以我们的文献或者文案通常都会找到游戏暴力,游戏成瘾这些负面的资讯上。于是冲突变成了一个标志。但假设说我们先就认定游戏和宗教在本质上有联系,我们便能发现一片新大陆,也就是我论文背靠的核心学术区 - 虚拟宗教 Digital Religion。 简单定义一下虚拟宗教。我在大四下学期学了一节关于虚拟宗教的课程Religion in Digital Age。这节课的导师给了我们虚拟宗教最基本的定义。虚拟宗教就是研究非传统“教会”体制化的宗教研究,并且其根源需要基于现代网络环境。这里的教会和体制就是基本的线下集会和集会场所,并不特指某一宗教。因为传统宗教几乎都需要实体化的集会人数和场所作为支持。于是乎这个虚拟宗教就能被细分和拆开两部分讨论。因为其中的一部分必然会是传统宗教移步现代网络之后的发展 - Religions Online。毕竟就算有神仙预测,也很难说古代的宗教能了解如今的我们居然会有网络这一高超手段。所以必然的新型的教会模式和网络集会所便有了新的意义。比如没有身体接触的集会意义如何?圣餐如何颁布?如何募捐等等。 另外一个部分就比较特殊。它更在意的是哪些源于网络的新兴宗教 - Online Religions。比如Googlism,也就是人们将Google称之为神,而创造了这个神的我们也非常的具有神性。前些年还有Church of AI。创建者Anthony Levandowski曾经还是Google的员工,不过后来他因为一些法律问题这个church也就不了了之了。上述这样的新兴宗教还有非常非常多。根本数不清。研究这些为什么会出现,如何被称之为宗教,怎么引领一些宗教变革的潮流,以及他们和传统宗教的区别也是很有意思的点。 但你会发现,我说的游戏宗教好像上述两点都不是特别符合。那这就要说说Digital Religion的神奇之处了。因为我们研究的是非体制化宗教,那意思就是说,不是说只有网络新兴宗教这样的非体制化宗教才符合。研究重新被塑造和定义的宗教其实更有意思。这是什么意思呢?简单来说,假设说我在教堂里会和神父讨论死后进入天堂的事。那如果是疫情我去不了教堂,那我就网络会面神父问他这个问题。好,这里因为接触神父的媒介已经改变,所以已经属于虚拟宗教的领域。继续往前深入,我在Facebook上创立了一个话题,名叫#死后能否进入天堂的测试。那这个话题的性质又变了。因为虽然我还是可以以一个基督徒的身份询问问题,我也可以把所有的回答全部筛选为符合天主教的答案。但是因为这不在是教堂的网络软件,这涉及到了Facebook在宗教立场上的问题。那有意思的点就出现了。这里,Facebook是不是在代替我们完成日常生活中“社会”的角色呢?那如果说Facebook是一个虚拟社会就不为过了吧?这样来说,我们也确实可以从宗教方面来了解虚拟社会这个概念。 那说到游戏,如果能够以社会Community这个概念讨论,就变得清晰很多了。重新说回Peter Berger和William Paden两位宗教社会学家。前面说了,人创造了社会,而社会创造了我们所生活的世界。在我们生活的世界里,它给我们带来了很多便利。因为社会是一个整体,所以社会创造了许多便利于这个整体的文化,比如社会角色,法律,语言,政治等等。这也间接说明了为什么每一个社会所创造的世界都不一样,每一个国家某种程度上就是一个封闭的整体。虽然整个现实世界需要沟通,但不可否认的是只有一个社会也是可以生存的。 那这个概念放到宗教里也是成立的。还是Berger和Paden,他们就讲述了同样的手法,宗教社会在已知去宗教化社会下也可以创建新的世界。只要有一个整体,就可以创造世界。比如说我们生活中是学生,是教师,是警察。这不影响我们信教,去教堂,做礼拜,奉献,做义工。这是在一个现实中发生的两个世界体系和两种文化。它们冲突,却又不冲突。 那游戏呢,是不是也有类似的世界创造?答案肯定是有的,而且几乎和宗教的世界创造体系一模一样。只不过这次平台变成了虚拟世界,宗教是虚拟宗教,法则也是全新不受限于物理的法则。所以我们觉得很假,不一样,却还是能产生很多共鸣。因为这个本质上也是一个整体社会创造的世界。我们只是发觉他不处于和我们所处现实一样的现实罢了。你能说如果我的意识就出生在虚拟,我能辨认那是虚拟吗?不,我肯定会觉得那就是属于我的现实。 说了这么多,其实还没有说到我文章的一点皮毛。但确实想理解游戏与宗教,这离不开虚拟宗教这个概念。想真的了解虚拟宗教,也不是那么的容易。因为现在也没有非常合适的定义和解释。 不过我们最终需要回到笔者的问题,“为什么有些人把游戏当信仰”? 首先第一点,咱们直接用大白话说。如果我现在玩的游戏,就是我正在接受的信仰。那这个问题不就是自问自答么。我在我的论文中提到这样的一个例子,Gregory Grieve,一位现代的虚拟宗教教授写过这样的一篇文章:“Meditation on the Go: Buddhist Smartphone Apps as Video Game Play”。Grieve在文章中讲述了一个手机游戏软件“Buddify”。这是一个基于佛教的Meditation游戏软件。在软件中,你可以跟着软件中的教程去完成自己网络形象从普通人到虔诚教徒的蜕变。通过完成各种小任务和阅读,你可以变得更像一位佛教徒。有意思的是,虽然你可以自己设计自己的人物和把握游戏进程,你自己本身却不需要是一位佛教徒。Grieve是在飞机上看到有人玩这款小游戏的。当快下飞机时,Grieve问这个玩家,对方却说,“哦,我不是一位佛教徒,我只是不可知论,并相信有灵的存在罢了”。 这其实引起了更多的问题和思考。那如果说一个佛教徒玩这款手机游戏,那好像说得过去。因为那就是他本人的一个信仰。不过不是佛教徒,为什么还要玩一款佛教游戏呢?这里就需要引出另外的一个重要的点:我们玩游戏的人格,真的是我们现实的人格吗? 这第二点,我们需要仔细考虑人格问题。因为我们目前的科技也并没有达到能把整个精神都送到虚拟的一个技术。那送过去的人格,是什么呢?MMORPG中,你可以自己选择你的角色。你可以现实生活中是男,然后游戏中是女。你可以选择肤色,可以选择职业,还可以在某些游戏中选阵营。Rubia Gregory对MMOPRG的说法是:“social and role-playing opportunities”。翻译过来就是“这是新的社会人格的重塑机会”。这间接说明了那端的我们,那屏幕这端的我们,可能并没有什么联系。也就是说,如果我说我们在那个游戏中选择了一个信仰,那也并不真的代表我们就必须在这个世界里有相同的信仰啊。假设说我在玩WOW,魔兽世界。我选择了联盟阵营,而我的女朋友比如说,选择了部落。那我们在游戏中可能会是对立的。我们可能会开战。但这代表说我们现实生活中就不能腻歪,不能在一起了吗?这显然说不通。 最后来说说笔者问题中的“为什么”。可能大家在回答这个问题的时候,先想到的是如何提出例子支持游戏里的内容当做信仰,也可以反对游戏里的内容当做信仰。不过其实这个问题里的另一个关键是这个问句的为什么。当我们这样去问问题或者思考的时候,我们其实也是在说:“是有这样的现象存在,所以我想了解其背后的原因”。而这样想的魅力就在于,我们已经默认了这样的现象。我们甚至不会质疑怎么会有人把游戏和宗教链接,怎么会有人觉得虚拟是宗教的另一个闸门。好像我们在玩到一个游戏基于神秘学,基于神话,基于体制化宗教时,我们就觉得这很正常一样。 回到我的论文,我的宗旨就是探讨这个为什么。我对比游戏世界和宗教世界,甚至现实世界的社会结构就是在说我们在社会中会不由自主的去创造世界。当创造了这个世界之后,我们就会不由自主的入住,先入为主,然后贴上各式各样的标签。我们其实对虚拟的了解一无所知。我们甚至不知道虚拟的那一头,我们创造出来的生物在我们把电脑关闭之后会做什么。我们再创造的人格,是不是真的在我们不在的时候还很听话。而我们对虚拟/游戏的首几个标签,就是在创造万虚拟世界后制订一套和我们现实生活一模一样的生活法则。那当然,生活法则中必然包含了宗教。 我们可以创造一个完全和现实世界不一样的游戏世界。但不能否认的是,绝大多数,甚至所有的游戏,多多少少都借鉴了现实生活。我们从来都不知道上帝长啥样,那我们就从历史里找找模样,再贴一个我们自己认为的标签,然后投放到游戏里。所以说,这也说到了最后的关键总结。我们在游戏中是什么? 如果说我们创造了游戏,我们又在游玩游戏。那我们是什么?我们就是神!我们可以肆无忌惮的更改游戏规则,我们可以随意尝试BUG,我们可以制作玩家mod来创新游戏。神在这个游戏里其实比起游戏工作室就是一串代码,比起玩家就是一个需要攻克的BOSS。所以说,当我们一次次尝试,一次次失败,一次次重生最后打败了游戏中的神和BOSS。那我们就成为了取代BOSS的游戏之神。 翻回来说,我们的信仰就变得非常显而易见了。既然我们就是神,那么我们简单来说就是在信仰自己。Humanism,人类至上主义,在游戏中有着非常充分的体现。因为我们就是无所不能的神。这和现实生活中我们的无力感形成了鲜明对比。所以说,信仰在游戏中也即是我们人类自己。 上述的绝大部分内容选自我在大学的毕业论文。如果各位觉得不错欢迎点击上文的link查看。其中有更多我上问没有提到的内容,比喻游戏在宗教状况下的定义,什么是现实,以及未来游戏宗教的发展方向。笔者,希望你对我的答案有些思考和启发。虽然这不一定是标准答案,但的确是许多作者和学者的答案。感谢。 部分Reference: Berger, P. L. (1969). The sacred canopy. Anchor Books. Berger, P. L., & Luckman, T. (1967). The social construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Doubleday & Company, Inc. Campbell, H., Grieve, G. P., & Gregory, R. (2014). Citing the Medieval: Using Religion as World-Buliding Infrastructure in Fantasy MMOPRGs. In Playing with religion in Digital Games (pp. 134–153). essay, Indiana University Press. Campbell, H., & Tsuria, R. (2022). Digital Religion Understanding Religious Practice in digital media. Routledge, Taylor & Francis. Forbes, B., Mahan, J. H., & Grieve, G. P. (2017). Meditation on the Go: Buddhist Smartphone Apps as Video Game Play. In Religion and popular culture in America (pp. 195–212). essay, University of California Press. Paden, W. E. (1994). Religious worlds. Beacon Press. Paden, W. E. (2012). Tracks and themes in a shifting landscape: Reflections on 50 years of the study of religion. Religion, 43(1), 89–101. https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721x.2013.744614 Paden, W. E. (2017). Shifting worldviews: Modeling sacrality in naturalistic perspective. Religion, 47(4), 704–717. https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721x.2017.1336888 Salen, K., & Zimmerman, E. (2003). Rules of play: Game design fundamentals. The MIT Press. Schuetz, A. (1945). On multiple realities. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 5(4), 533–576. https://doi.org/10.2307/2102818 Wagner, R. (2012). First-person shooter religion : Algorithmic culture and inter-religious Encounter. CrossCurrents, 62(2), 181–203. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-3881.2012.00229.x Wagner, R. (2012). Godwired: Religion, ritual, and virtual reality. Routledge. Wagner, R. (2013). God in the game: Cosmopolitanism and religious conflict in Videogames. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 81(1), 249–261. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/ 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com AdolShadow 点击下载 7 个回答,查看全部。 民政局警告处罚的意义是什么? 我坚定地信仰共产主义,有人能告诉我,我可以做什么吗?

  • 美联储再次加息 75 个基点,重申控通胀的坚定承诺,本次加息能否有效控制通胀上升?对全球经济有何影响?

    知乎每日精选 · Thu, 28 Jul 2022 12:50:00 +0800

    昨晚上美联储加息75bp之后,市场反应如下: 美元指数跌100pips,比特币涨了1600美元,标普500涨了近3%,10y美国国债收益率跌到2.79%。 这是什么意思?难道加息之后市场反应是欢呼牛市开始了吗? 关键就在于Powell透露了这些内容(英文为原话): 1.美联储开始“data dependent”。 2.FOMC会议将变成“meeting by meeting basis”。 上面两项在说一件事情,也就是Fed不会再有一个预设的利率变化路径,一切随缘,看数据他们再作出反应。也就意味着Fed不再用forward guidance来引导市场和经济了(他们往往都是用模型预测经济来提供一个预设FFR路径),他们从guidance变成了response,从主动变成了被动。 那市场怎么想呢?那就意味着市场会更多price in经济运作的路径,市场怎么看待通胀呢? 如果你看10y-2y的yield curve就看到倒挂到什么程度了,30bp都已经超过2008年金融危机前的倒挂水平了。市场不但觉得通胀不能持久,而且在pricing明后年美联储将以自由落体方式降息。 所以现在很多宏观基金都在做多10y,20y长期债券。观点就是因为都看到了recession是绝无可能避免的了,不管美联储官员怎么说,美国经济进入萧条在市场眼里那是没有争议的事情了。 我们已经看到很多证据都能说明世界经济在进入萧条,PMI暴跌,铜价暴跌,住房数据差,FAANG开始减少headcount,还有倒挂的YC,萧条中demand destruction能很快把通胀拉下来,美联储如果指根据数据来作出反应,那么市场推断明年后那年就是光速降息。那么昨天看到的市场反应基本就能表明最近市场对经济的看法。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 陈伟杰 点击下载 244 个回答,查看全部。 美联储加息 75 个基点,和市场预期一致,美联储加息对该国经济有何影响? 7 月 美联储再次加息 75 个基点,这将会产生哪些影响?

  • 美国财长称,即使美国经济增速连续两个季度为负,也不意味着衰退,目前美国经济形势如何?

    知乎每日精选 · Tue, 26 Jul 2022 13:20:55 +0800

    关于衰退(recession)的定义,流传比较广泛的是1974年Julius Shiskin的定义:两个季度的真实GDP下降。理由就是一个健康的经济总是在逐渐扩张的,而两个季度的萎缩,意味着经济一定是出了问题,所以就是衰退。 但是美国的国家经济研究局(NBER)一直以来是不采用这个标准的,NBER的定义是: a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. 持续数月的经济活动的不断下降,通常会在真实GDP,真实收入、就业、工业生产和零售等方面所体现出来。 这两个标准比较的话,NBER的更有弹性,JS的更量化。不过更量化的未必更严格。有一个例子就是2001年的经济衰退: 单独看GDP的话,会发现还可以,波动了一下就迅速涨回去了。但是如果看失业率的话: 会发现2001年的问题远远比GDP上所反映的要严重很多,270多万个职位消失了,比以前的各种衰退中职位消失量都大很多。 从这个意义上说,耶伦的话本来就是可以双向解读的:一方面,两季度的GDP萎缩,确实不意味着就进入了衰退——因为衰退意味着收入下降,失业人数增加,然后生产下降,东西卖不出去,继续失业这么一个经济萎缩的过程,直到触底反弹,单独GDP萎缩可能有其他的原因,比如高通胀。 另一方面,在疫情刚开始的时候,就已经有人讨论过美国是否在不触发两季度GDP萎缩的情况下,就会进入事实上的衰退。因为疫情本来就是有波峰和波谷的,而波峰和波谷会影响劳动力供给,所以真实GDP可能一个季度高一点,一个季度低一点,但是事实上这种不稳定性已经造成了收入下降和失业的提升。 上面这个图就是1980年衰退的情况。当时也是能源危机+通货膨胀,经济因为能源危机而萎靡,然后迅速反弹,之后通货膨胀居高不下,美联储迅速加息,又把经济按下去了,之后起伏数次。如果按照JS定义的话,只有1981四季度到1982一季度有连续两季度的衰退,其他时候都不是,然而现在普遍认为1980衰退的区间要比JS定义的区间要大。 现在美国的经济就业还是处在过热的状态,失业率居低不下: 可以说是衰退的征兆,但是如果要NBER宣布美国进入衰退,还是要进入上述说的那种产出下降,失业增多、GDP萎缩的情况。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 司马懿 点击下载 197 个回答,查看全部。 美财长耶伦讲「2023 年通胀将大幅放缓,对美国经济前景感到乐观」,目前美国经济现状如何? 美财长耶伦表示美国经济增长将明显放缓,但不会陷入衰退,释放了哪些信号?

  • 中国金融业现状是怎样的?

    知乎每日精选 · Mon, 25 Jul 2022 14:06:55 +0800

    金融业发展历程 先梳理一下改革开放以来金融业的发展历程。 中国的改革开放是以1978年的十一届三中全会为起点的,这也是金融改革的起点。 在此之前的计划经济时代,中国的金融体系非常简单,规模很小,种类也很单一,基本上只有中国人民银行一家机构。人民银行既要承担中央银行的职责,又要提供商业银行的业务。这种体系之所以能维持,是因为在计划经济体制下,几乎所有的经济活动都由中央计划安排。企业需要做投资、买原料、付工资的资金都由计划统一调配,企业的盈余也要全部上缴,老百姓的存款也很少。对应的,金融机构能发挥的作用也十分有限。 (实际上,中国的金融体系一度曾非常发达。大概在100年前,在彼时的国际金融中心—上海,市面上一度有100多个国家的货币同时流通。当时实行银本位制,跨境资本流动完全自由。不过在20世纪三四十年代,因为受到大萧条和连年战争的冲击,金融体系基本上崩溃。1949年新中国成立,1952年开始,金融机构国有化。之后在社会主义改造运动中,金融机构几乎全部被取消。) 1、重建金融体系 改革开放以后,中国经济开始从中央计划向市场经济转型。随着市场改革的不断深入,经济活动越来越频繁,对金融发展的需求越来越多,“大一统”的金融体系亟需改革。1979年,中国银行、农业银行、建设银行相继从人民银行独立出来;1984年,工商银行也从人民银行独立出来。至此,人民银行专司中央银行的职能。 不过,当时的工商银行、农业银行、中国银行、建设银行分别服务于工商业、农业、国际业务和项目建设等行业,相互之间没有充分竞争,显然不符合市场经济的基本特征。1993年,十四届三中全会决定成立三家政策性银行,即国家开发银行、中国进出口银行、中国农业发展银行,专门承担政策性服务,四大行只承担商业性业务,不再按专业领域划分,相互之间可以交叉、竞争。 但是,由于初期大型商业银行自身治理不规范、政府干预等原因,大型商业银行不良贷款风险积聚。1997年爆发的亚洲金融危机又给中国脆弱的金融体系沉重一击。按照世行的统计,2001年中国商业银行的不良贷款率接近30%,面临严重资不抵债。于是在2003年以后,国务院对国有商业银行进行了注资和不良资产剥离,引入了境内外战略投资者,启动了现代公司治理改革,在国内外公开发行股票上市,真正开始接受市场检验。(想了解更多国有大行股改上市的内容,推荐阅读潘功胜的著作《大行蝶变—中国大型商业银行复兴之路》,这里不再展开。) 这次改革也加快了商业银行竞争性格局的形成。此后,银行业的市场结构从国有大行高度垄断逐渐转变为国有商业银行、全国性股份制商业银行、城商行、农商行等多元主体共同竞争,银行迎来了蓬勃发展。2021年,国际权威财经媒体《银行家》在其官网上公布了2021年全球银行1000强,中国共有144家银行上榜。其中,中国工商银行、中国建设银行、中国农业银行和中国银行位列全球排行榜前四位。 中国金融体系是典型的银行主导型。为了保持对金融资源分配的干预和控制,金融资源主要集中在国有大行,而股票、债券等直接融资市场发展相对落后。 中国的股权市场开始于1990年,上海证券交易所和深圳证券交易所先后成立,以证监会为核心的证券市场统一监管体制开始形成。1999年,《证券法》出台后,资本市场在法律体系的保障下进一步规范和完善。2006年,中国资本市场完成了具有里程碑意义的股权分置改革,实现了股票市场按照统一市场机制定价,使中国资本市场的发展摆脱了过去主要为国有经济融资的路径,为资本市场优化资源配置功能奠定了基础。2006年起通过开展一系列专项活动,资本市场不断优化。2018年,上交所设立科创板并试点注册制,多层次的资本市场体系基本形成。 债券市场方面,中国于1981年开始发行国债,1983年发行企业债,2007年发行第一支公司债,2015年证监会出台《公司债发行与交易管理办法》,将公司债发行主体扩展到全体企业。此后,公司债进入快速发展期,中国债券市场的产品和交易工具在创新中越来越全面:在基础产品的种类上基本与发达国家债券一致,主要包括政府债券、金融债券、公司信用债券和资产支持类债券;交易工具方面,除了传统的现券和质押式回购、买断式回购外,还有国债期货、债券借贷以及人民币利率互换等利率衍生品。 与国内金融体系的发展完善相比,中国金融业对外开放的历程相对审慎,特别是在早期。以汇改为例,我国的汇率市场化改革可谓走走停停,曾在历次危机后一度中断。 1953年至1972年间,我国采用单一固定汇率制。随着计划经济体制的逐步健全,我国汇率长期保持基本稳定。1973年布雷顿森林体系瓦解,西方国家普遍实行浮动汇率制度,人民币汇率则采用以一篮子货币计价的单一浮动汇率制,并进入一个升值周期,一直持续到1980年左右。 当时人民币兑美元汇率为1.5:1,严重高估。为了鼓励出口,我国开始实行官方汇率与外汇内部结算价并行的双重汇率制度。 随着经济开放程度加大,汇率双轨制逐渐不能适应我国的开放需求。1994年初,中国进行了双轨合一的外汇体制改革,实行以市场供求为基础、单一的、有管理的浮动汇率制度,这也奠定了当前汇率制度的基本框架。 1996年,中国宣布经常项目可兑换,并开始逐渐酝酿资本项目可兑换。但当时条件还不成熟。特别是受1997年亚洲金融危机冲击,人民币出现贬值压力,国内通缩压力上升,银行坏账加快积累,汇率体制改革一度放缓,资本项目开放的计划也只能暂停。之后面对中国加入世界贸易组织、“9·11”事件后世界经济疲软等新的形势和因素,为减少不确定性,保持人民币汇率政策的连续性,汇率波幅收窄了较长一段时间。 2005年,随着世界经济企稳、美联储稳步加息、国内经济运行平稳,中国迎来了新一轮汇率改革的时间窗口。这一年的7月21日,新一轮人民币汇改启动,中国的外汇制度从钉住美元开始转为以市场供求为基础、参考一篮子货币进行调节、有管理的浮动汇率制度。但2008年国际金融危机暴发,令汇率市场化进程再度中断。 2010年年中,中国人民银行宣布进一步推进人民币汇率形成机制改革。2015年,央行启动“8·11”汇改,进行中间价报价机制改革,增强市场化成分,“收盘汇率+一篮子货币汇率变化”这一中间价形成机制逐步确立。 不过,本该受到市场欢迎的改革,却成了引发人民币大幅贬值预期的导火索,甚至引发了一轮规模较大的资本外流。为稳定金融体系,央行采取了两方面的措施,一是加强跨境资本流动的管理,二是动用外汇储备进行干预。可以说是付出了市场化改革部分倒退的代价。不过,结合当时中国所处的环境,不难理解央行所采取的一系列措施也是迫不得已,而且也达到了稳定预期的目的。 客观地说,在短短四十多年的时间里,中国几乎白手起家,建立了一个较为完整的金融体系,且从没有发生过系统性金融危机,这一点实属不易。 2、目前中国金融体系的三大特征 自1978年实施改革开放以来,中国的金融业一直致力于建立市场化的金融体系,这种体系大多是以欧美成熟经济体的金融体系为范本的。不过,与欧美等发达国家的金融体系相比,中国金融体系有不少独特之处,其中有三方面特征尤为突出,即规模大、管制多、监管弱。 首先是规模大。 规模大体现在机构和资产两方面。从机构角度看,当前中国金融机构数量和种类都已经很完备了。有央行、银保监会、证监会组成的“一行两会”的监管部门,也有国家开发银行、中国进出口银行、中国农业发展银行组成的三大政策性银行,还包括工农中建交、邮储六家大型国有银行,十几家股份制商业银行以及近4000家城商行、农商行和村镇银行。此外还有保险公司、证券公司、资产管理公司等金融机构。可以说,市场经济国家拥有的金融机构中国几乎都有,而且数量庞大。 从资产规模来看,中国的金融体系是典型的银行主导,相对而言,资本市场就不够发达,但是用市值来衡量,中国股票市场在全世界排名第二,债券市场全世界排名第三。 其次是管制多。 管制多,意味着政府对金融体系的干预还是比较普遍的。中国从计划经济向市场经济转型,采用的是渐进式的双轨制改革。在改革过程中,产品市场基本上都放开了,但资本、土地、能源等要素市场的干预依然较多。在金融领域,金融抑制则普遍存在。比如,商业银行的存贷款利率,商业银行有一定的自主权,但很大程度上还是受央行指导和监测;央行对汇率市场贬值太多或升值太多时都会有一些干预;政府对跨境资本流动有比较严厉的管制等。 (金融抑制这个概念是由斯坦福大学的麦金农教授提出来的,主要是指政府对利率、汇率、资金配置、大型金融机构和跨境资本流动的各种形式的干预和管制。) 上图展示的是金融抑制指数,0意味着金融体系完全市场化,1意味着金融体系完全由政府控制。可以看出,过去四十年间中国的金融抑制指数下降了约40%,但仍处在较高的水平。 最后是监管弱。 监管弱主要是指当前的监管机制防范与处置金融风险的能力不强。改革开放以来,中国维持金融稳定的基本经验主要有两条:一是政府兜底,二是持续的高增长。政府兜底可以在短期内稳定投资者信心,避免市场出现大的震荡。持续高增长的好处是可以在发展中解决问题,发生了问题,只要有办法把增量控制住,存量可以慢慢消化。 不过,2008年国际金融危机之后,中国经济从高速增长转为中高速增长。商业银行不良率开始上升,与此同时,随着中国经济已深度融入世界经济,受到国外市场波动的外溢性影响,金融风险也随之增加,过去维持稳定的做法已经越来越难以持续。 近年来,政府一直在努力处置各个领域的金融风险,尽量守住不发生系统性金融风险的底线。与此同时,国务院也成立了金融稳定发展委员会以加强监管政策的协调,并将过去“一行三会”的分业监管格局逐步过渡为“一委一行、两会两局”的统一监管大框架。但这个新的监管格局刚刚形成,一些具体的运行机制也在不断的完善之中,是否能够及时、有效地识别并处置金融风险,还有待检验。 3、市场经济下,为何存在较多金融抑制? 在上述这三大特征中,规模大和监管弱都相对好理解。但是就“管制多”这一特征而言,为什么在市场经济下,中国仍然存在较多的金融抑制? 正如前文所述,双轨制的改革策略可能是最直接的诱因。 与前苏联、东欧等转型经济体采取的“休克疗法”不同,中国在经济领域采取的是“双轨制”改革策略。 休克疗法意味着立刻全部取消计划体制,并对所有国有企业实行私有化改造。这种做法简单高效,但在实践中有很多困难。比如,改革初期经济很容易崩盘,而市场机制的培育和发展需要相当长时间,经济恢复也需要很长时间。 “双轨制”改革则是,一方面支持国有企业继续运行;另一方面为非国有部门创造更宽松的成长空间。这种改革的优势是可以避免改革初期经济与社会的大震荡,特别是大规模的失业和严重的经济衰退,缺点是国有企业通常效率比较低,需要外部支持才能够持续生存。 而政府支持国有企业最简单的方式应该是财政补贴,但在改革期间特别是在前二十年间,财政一直捉襟见肘。政府只好借助于生产要素市场扭曲,变相地补贴国有企业。具体体现在两个方面,一是人为压低要素的价格,降低生产成本;二是政府干预要素配置决策,把大量的生产资源分配给国有企业以及其他大企业。而在金融领域,则进一步体现为压低实际利率,将大量的信贷资金流向国有企业,在包括信贷和非金融企业债券的整个债务融资市场中,国有企业的份额占到75%左右。这也就导致了很多非国企经济主体的融资需求无法从正规金融部门得到满足,只好转向民间借贷、影子银行等非正规部门。实际上,影子银行和互联网金融的发展也是变相的利率市场化过程,这里我们不展开描述,在之后的文章中会详细解释。 除了利率外,中国始终还保持着不同程度的资本项目管制,这也是中国金融抑制政策的重要组成部分。不过,资本项目管制一定程度上防止资本大进大出,对维持金融稳定起到了重要作用,而金融改革的确需要循序渐进。 到底应该如何看待金融抑制?金融抑制究竟是促进了中国的经济成功,还是说没有妨碍经济成功?抑或是经济本可以更成功呢?这个问题非常重要,因为它不仅关乎如何理解过去,更涉及如何应对未来。关于这个问题,下期我们将继续更新,欢迎大家讨论和关注。 参考文献 黄益平、王勋,《读懂中国金融—金融改革的经济学分析》 金中夏、赵岳、王浩斌,《人民币:从市场化走向国际化》 国际金融报,从“技术性破产”到全球“四强” 国有大行涅槃重生 胡晓炼:实行有管理的浮动汇率制度是我国既定政策 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 金融四十人论坛 点击下载 16 个回答,查看全部。 2022年中国经济处在长波周期的哪个阶段? 现在全世界经济都在下行,请教一下有哪些地方是相对较好的呢?

  • 如何评价动画电影《开心超人之英雄的心》?

    知乎每日精选 · Fri, 22 Jul 2022 18:15:49 +0800

    感谢所有支持与喜爱,我们一起并肩作战! 大家好!我是动画电影《开心超人之英雄的心》的导演黄伟明。 《开心宝贝》诞生于2010年,至今已有12周年,《开心超人之英雄的心》是系列的第三部大电影,它对“开心超人”和我来说,都是非常特别的作品,睽违银幕八年、首次的三维尝试等等,是至关重要的挑战。 12年前,我创作了《开心宝贝》动画片,初衷是希望在日本、欧美的超级英雄围绕下的中国小朋友们,能够拥有中国自己的超人偶像、自己的超级英雄,也希望《开心宝贝》能够为大朋友和小朋友们都带去欢笑,而此刻,这个初心始终不变,超人们热血永远不灭,勇敢、善良、自信、宽容、坚毅的品质也是永远不变的,这些在影片当中,相信大家也都会感受得到。 自2014年第二部大电影《开心超人2:启源星之战》之后,我和团队就开始策划这第三部的大电影,希望能够做出些与以往不同的,震撼人心的作品。2900多个日日夜夜,我们从策划的无数次推翻重组、剧本的无数次打磨,到分镜的几十个版本,剪辑版的七十多个版本,最终生成96分钟的成片,是全团队的不懈努力的结果。 在这八年的过程中“开心超人”IP也经历了许多,它从《开心宝贝》更名为《开心超人联盟》,我们也不断地在问自己“随着观众的成长,我们需要做出怎样的升级?”自2016年的第十季《开心超人联盟之英雄归来》起,动画的画风全面升级,这对一个在当时常青已经6年的IP来说,是非常大胆的举动,一开始大部分观众们有些不适应,但从最终此季的收视成绩来看,它是获得了广泛认可的。在这一部当中我们也开始了部分集数连续剧情的尝试,随着观众的成长,大家期待看到更具深度的内容,我们稍微放下了最擅长的单元喜剧,之后的几季我们继续深入连续剧情的铺写,到第13季《开心超人联盟之能源核守护者》已是整季的完整连续故事。直到最新播出的剧集《开心超人联盟之异星迷航》,我们仍在权衡单元喜剧的轻松欢乐和连续剧情的深度内容之间的平衡,也感谢大家能够给予我们机会继续努力和进步。 而大电影《开心超人之英雄的心》则是前所未有的更大挑战,首次三维的尝试意味着几乎所有一切从零开始,我和团队摸着石头过河,每个环节的修改量都是非常庞大的,日夜挠头甚至崩溃是基本日常,现在看来也许是有点莽撞的,是对开心超人、对动画的热爱让我们继续坚持,在这里感谢团队的每一个人愿意一起尝试挑战,感谢每个人付出的不懈努力。 这部影片里,在画面上,从基础的美术到整个星星球城市的打造,观众能够看见的、观众难以发现的镜头没有带到的部分,我们都尽我们的努力倾力打磨。在剧情方面,我们希望能够通过影片收获新朋友,也让老朋友能够喜欢,它会是小朋友们喜欢的搞笑动画片,因它笑点满载,它也会是大朋友爱看的热血动画电影,因它其中内含了宇宙黑洞、时间穿越等“烧脑”剧情,点映以来93%以上的好评率也肯定了科幻震撼的视觉效果和剧情的可看度,非常感谢大家的肯定。 再次感谢观众在我们每次尝试挑战和改变的时候,能够给予我们机会,不断努力、继续争取进步,为大家带来更好的作品。 最近看到有不少粉丝留言说“等待了八年,今天终于可以看到开心超人电影3,一定会到影院支持!”,真的感触良多,八年不短,12年更是整一轮,感谢大家长久的等待和支持。 在开心超人的“本命年”,我们推出了《开心超人之英雄的心》这部爆笑、热血、科幻的电影,它会告诉大家,平凡人也可以做自己的超人,希望给大家不畏困难,不惧挑战的勇气。 《开心超人之英雄的心》今日全国上映,我们满怀期待,诚挚地希望大家能够到影院观看这部坚持与热爱铸就的影片,希望大家能够喜欢我们这部影片。 自影片点映以来,我们也观察到《开心超人之英雄的心》维持着最高好评率93%,今日7月22日首映的上座率更是暑期新片当中最高的,然而影片的排片率却是档期最低,很多粉丝都纷纷跟我们留言说想去影院支持,但当地的影院没有排片,也希望院线和影城的朋友们,能够看到大家对我们的支持,也给予影片支持和鼓励。 “只要有一颗超人的心,就是超人!” 一路以来,我们在大家的关怀和热爱中,跌跌撞撞地成长,我们都没有超能力,但我们都有一颗热爱和坚持铸就的“超人心”,希望未来我们有幸能够继续陪伴大家,也希望我们有幸能够获得大家的陪伴,我们努力,让开联永不完结,我们约定——开联永不毕业。 感谢所有支持与喜爱,让我们一起并肩作战! 感谢大家! 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 黄伟明 点击下载 18 个回答,查看全部。 动画《开心超人之英雄的心》曝光的绝不放弃版预告片中有哪些亮点? 动画《开心超人之英雄的心》将在 6 月 1 日起点映,这部电影有哪些亮点?

  • 啤酒太涨肚,白酒又太烈,有什么度数不高的夏日好酒推荐?

    知乎每日精选 · Fri, 22 Jul 2022 18:05:55 +0800

    谢邀@知乎美食 我觉得可以尝试一下清酒,尤其是清酒中的“夏酒”类别。 清酒的酒精度一般在14~21度之间,烈度远不如白酒,也远远没有啤酒那么涨肚(毕竟大都没有气)。 日本四季分明,每个季节都有特色明显的食材,所以日本酒厂为了增加销量,也就纷纷推出季节性的清酒,比如说春天樱花季的“花见酒”,秋季的“月见酒”,冬季的“雪见酒”。 在四季中,夏天喝的“夏酒”历史是最短的,日本唎酒师协会(SSI)第一次确定夏酒这个概念是在2007年,距今仅15年。 像秋酒这样历史比较悠久的(在江户时代就已经有了),各家的工艺和风格基本是很一致的,就是“冷卸”工艺:就是拿一些春天酿好的酒(基本上是纯米酒或纯米吟酿,当然也有一些其它级别的),经过一次巴氏杀菌,然后在酒厂里储存到夏末秋初的时候,不经巴杀就直接装瓶出售。冷卸酒的味道一般都偏浓醇饱满,适合搭配味道比较浓厚的秋刀鱼等秋季食材。 夏酒历史短,多样性就比较高,各种风格在市场上厮杀,目前还没有杀出一个赢家,但这也让夏酒的多样性非常丰富。 目前夏酒大约可以分成以下几类(不是太严谨的分类,里面可能有交叉,一款酒同时属于两个类别): 1、高酒精度(一般来说会在17度以上,一般都是原酒,也就是说酿好以后不再加水稀释了)、风味较浓郁的类别 这种类别存在的意义是让你加冰,喝起来更解暑,同时不破坏酒的香味。因为通常喝清酒是不建议加冰的,怕冰块融化后稀释酒体和风味。但是上面说的这种夏酒由于酒精度很高,味道也很浓郁,加了冰块以后,除了让口感更凉爽,还能通过融冰把酒精度和风味浓度降下来,变得更适口。 这类酒的典型代表是这款: 来自滋贺县北岛酒造,“御代荣 销夏酒”。这款的酒精度高达20度!在清酒里算是度数很高的。加冰以后有比较柔和的瓜类、香蕉、苹果的香气,喝起来很冰爽,就是一定要注意别喝太快,毕竟20度还是很容易让人喝醉的。 2、略带酸味,类似白葡萄酒的类别 夏天的时候,人的食欲通常会降低一些。喝点带有一定酸度的酒,更开胃。此外,现在清酒行业也流行酿造这种类似白葡萄酒的产品,有果香、有酸度、冷着喝,自然能消暑。 “纪土 夏之疾风 纯米吟酿”,来自和歌山县的平和酒造。除了名字就带有一股凉意以外,酒有着淡淡的酸度和干净的口感,冷饮的时候非常清爽。 推荐这款来自和歌山县的“车坂 夏凉纯米酒”。这款有着柠檬、青苹果般的水果香和酸味,还有一点类似苏玳甜酒的稻草香,还有一些米香味,冷饮效果相当好,也适合搭配一些肉类等菜式使用,有解腻效果。 这款是连续五年斩获“全国新酒鉴评会”金奖的文佳人家的出品,酒标上的图案和贴纸形象都源于日本传统夏日祭中的“酒妖怪”。风味上,这款属于酸度比较高的,青苹果、柠檬、酸奶的香味,风味偏浓郁,冷饮或者加冰饮都挺好。不过如果是平时就不怎么喝清酒和葡萄酒的,会不熟悉这种味道。 静冈县高岛酒造的作品,用于发酵的一部分酒曲是烧酒用的“白曲”(清酒通常用“黄曲”),白曲会生成大量的柠檬酸,这也在发酵中保存在酒里,增加了酒的酸度,配上米香、鲜味、淡淡的果香,冷喝的时候既开胃又消暑。 3、口感清凉爽快、带有微微果香或鲜香的类别 这一类和上一类其实挺接近的,因为两者都有果香。区别在于,第二类的果香是带有酸度的,比较有酸甜兼备的感觉;这个第三类是没有酸度或者说酸度比较低的,甘口或辛口的都有。反正带果香的酒只要冰着喝都挺消暑的。 至于为什么口感要做得很清爽,那是因为它冰镇着喝的时候,风味会更淡更收敛,你就可以吨吨吨地大口喝,不怕腻。 这个类别也是夏酒中比较主流的类别,比如: “陆奥八仙 夏吟酿”。这个品牌应该北京的日料爱好者都会知道,因为在北京推广好多年了,很多日本料理店都会用它。酒来自日本北部的青森县,天气寒冷,尤其到了酿酒的秋冬季节,经常漫天大雪。寒冷的天气对于需要低温发酵的吟酿类清酒有很大帮助,陆奥八仙家的吟酿类清酒品质都不错。这款夏酒比较有他们家的典型风格,清爽且带有果香,微微的辛口,口感很干净,没有任何腻感,再加上14度的酒精度,冰了以后直接可以吨吨吨了,超解暑。 “天青 纯米吟酿 夏酒”,取名于五代后周世宗柴荣赞扬柴窑瓷器的一句话“雨后天青云破处”,当然大家更熟的是周杰伦的青花瓷“天青色等烟雨”。酒厂给酒取这个名字,就是为了寓意他们家的出品有“清澈、穿透的凉爽和充满滋润的味道”。这款酒也可以说比较好地传达了酒厂的理念,酒精度也是只有14度,清清淡淡的,非常爽口,带有淡淡果香。 “七田 夏纯”,日本佐贺县天山酒造的出品,这家酒厂比较擅长做风味饱满的各种纯米酒。这款夏酒可以说并不是他们的常规风格,非常的清爽,淡淡的梨子香,而酒精度和前面兩款一行,还是14度,冰了以后真的可以大口大口喝。 终于见到不是蓝色酒瓶、蓝色酒标的夏酒!不过仔细看一眼,颈标的地方还是有蓝字“清凉”。蓝色真就是夏酒的标配了。这款酒来自日本四国,那地方可以说就是个乡下,大部分的酒厂也都是比较小型、偏手工生产的——这个品牌“贺仪屋”就是如此。整个酒厂的生产部门只有四个人,在酿造季节连老板都要亲自参加作业——在他那身为总酿酒师的弟弟的带领之下酿酒。 酒名是“贺仪屋 花火 清凉纯米”,这花火自然是寓意着日本夏季的花火大会了,非常应景。酒是15.5度,属于比较清爽,带有热带水果香气和米香的,冰镇饮用会比较爽口,收结干净而不腻。 再安利一下贺仪屋的这个季节系列,一共四款,每季一款,酒标由日本的剪纸艺术家盐崎刚设计,颜值和风味都挺好。 4、浊酒类 浊酒一般是过滤得没那么细,让少量酒粕还留在酒中;又或者是过滤完以后再重新往里添加酒粕。因为酒粕的存在,让它含有更多蛋白质和氨基酸,据说消暑效果比较好。此外浊酒也比较适合冷饮。 惠那山来自岐阜县的“间酒造”,是个超过200年的老酒厂,原本属于传统守旧的那种,但是近年锐意革新,先是转为全量生产纯米酒,不再酿需要添加酿造酒精的品类;还到“澄川酒造场”去学习酿酒技术。回来以后酿成的惠那山在次年的IWC上就斩获银牌。 “惠那山 Cheers 纯米大吟酿 微浊生酒”是他们家的夏酒,在酒体留下了少许酒粕,带来微微的甜味,酒体还有香蕉、白桃、梨子的香味,余韵带有微微的酸,喝了以后胃口大开。 (由于这款同时也是生酒,所以归入下一类也无不可。) 5、生酒类 其实夏酒是比较少用生酒的形式呈现的,因为做夏酒的逻辑更倾向于让它的味道更清爽淡雅,这样就可以冷着吨吨吨来解暑。要不就是把酒精度和风味浓度都做得更高,通过加冰来变清爽;要不就是把它本来的风味做得比较清爽,然后冰镇以后更清爽。 而不经任何巴氏杀菌的生酒,味道通常比较浓郁,有明显的水果香,但是这样的酒你用来吨吨吨,就会容易腻,腻了就喝不多,喝不多就没有那么冰凉畅快的感觉了。 所以碰到还在坚持用生酒做夏酒的话,说明这酒厂还真有点东西。 天之户是近年很红的一个小品牌,只酿造纯米系清酒,也就是酿酒过程中不添加任何食用酒精。此外,更牛的一点是:只采用酒厂半径5公里以内,由平鹿町酒米研究会的农家们栽种的大米。可以说是很极致的地酒。 这款“Land of Water 生酒”是他们家的夏酒,虽然是生酒,但是味道做得相当收敛,淡淡的乳酸、梨子、矿物香味,还有鲜甜味,柔雅如水,但却有很不错的回味,相当推荐。 “风之森 Alpha Type 1 夏之夜空”,风之森不用再多介绍了,日本的网红清酒,每一款的果香都非常澎湃,带有微气泡口感,口感香甜饱满。风之森 Alpha系列每一款都在挑战一个主题,“Alpha Type 1”挑战的是低酒精度生原酒,是一款只有14度的生原酒,而它的夏季限定版“夏之夜空”,更进一步,只有10度!以青苹果、荔枝的香调为主,口感相对甜一点。冰镇到5摄氏度左右再喝,甜味会收敛一些,更容易大口喝来解暑。 (坏消息是,产量很小,在日本都不够卖,所以没有出口。) 国内的90后和00后日料爱好者,可能大都不认识这个叫“久保田”的品牌了。不过在2011年之前,它在国内的市场占有率相当高,比獭祭还高。因为福岛核灾,国内禁止了福岛及其附近十县市的农副产品进口,久保田所在的新潟县也在其中,所以它已经十多年没法进口了。 这款“久保田 翠寿”也是夏酒,每年4-9月限定发售,是大吟酿生酒。每次到日本或者香港澳门,碰到这款“久保田 翠寿”(大吟酿生酒),我都会买来喝,因为真是太好喝了,它的果香和甜味都比较柔和,喝起来真不腻,冰镇一下口感更是清爽。(当然这个也只能介绍一下了,国内买不到。) 关于夏酒的介绍就说到这里,祝大家喝得开心,消暑愉快~ ~~~~~小广告的分割线~~~~~ 我做了个微信公众号“饮识分子”(ID:Thedrinkers),以各种有趣的方式来普及关于酒的知识,有兴趣的欢迎来关注下~ 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 黄山 点击下载 163 个回答,查看全部。 夏天对各种美食实在是没有抵抗力,有什么解腻的好酒推荐吗? 发现了一款超级好喝的酒,一点也不辛辣,叫华栗紫椹酒,强烈推荐?

  • 书法美学和建筑形式——林散之书画院建成小记

    知乎每日精选 · Fri, 22 Jul 2022 15:35:09 +0800

    五年前的设计,三年前的文章,原文发表于《建筑技艺》 2020年第8期,项目曾发布于谷德设计网。 安徽省林散之书画院 01 建筑与林散之公园©肖凯雄 书法美学和建筑形式——林散之书画院建成小记 摘要:当代“草圣”林散之,生于江苏南京市江浦县,祖籍安徽省。在安徽和县乌江镇,为纪念当代“草圣”林散之的艺术成就,设立了此次的安徽省林散之书画院项目,包含了新建的书画院和易地复建的九牧堂古建筑。千年文化传承中的中国书法,是中国美学史的重要部分。这次的设计,在总体布局、建筑形态、空间和细部做法上结合了书法美学和建筑美学的共性,希望通过建筑语言来表达出林散之书法的一丝风骨和传统文化的一些传承。 关键词:书法、草书、传统文化、美学、建筑设计 通讯作者:袁牧, 第一作者:潘静 02 建筑总平面©肖凯雄04 南侧鸟瞰©肖凯雄05 东侧鸟瞰©肖凯雄06 从西北侧林散之广场鸟瞰书画院©肖凯雄 08 西南角俯瞰©肖凯雄 一、林散之的书法与生平 书法 提起当代“草圣”林散之,众所周知的都是他“诗书画三绝”,尤其草书饮誉世界,被称为“草圣”。世人评价散之草书“以王羲之为宗,以释怀素为体,以王觉斯为友,以董其昌、祝允明为宾”[1],其“瘦劲飘逸”的“林体”可以说是开创了草书艺术的新天地。然而并不广为人知的是,林散之年少时是以碑学入门,研习楷行,直至六十岁才专攻草书,以隶意入草,取各家所长,方得大成。 他在自序中这样概括自己书法创变的过程:“余八岁时,开始学艺,未有师承。十六岁从乡亲范培开先生学书。先生授以唐碑,并授安吴执笔悬腕之法,心好习之”。又云:“余学书,初从范先生,一变;继从张先生,一变;后从黄先生及远游,一变;方稀之后,又一变矣。”[2]其自我鉴定书法进程为四个阶段。 而他在教导后代时也提出草书要建立在楷书、行书的基础上,必须守法蹈矩,否则便会流于粗率[3]。这一点与古时“草圣”张旭、怀素等有很大不同。 生平 林散之一生的书法精进也与他的生平经历息息相关。 林散之,名霖,字散之,号三痴、左耳、江上老人等[4],散之是取自“三痴”的谐音。幼时患病致使左耳微聋,因此他也常用散耳作为落款。初次欣赏林老的作品,曾误将“散耳”当做“散之”,还好奇这个“之”写的甚是不同,结果在方案汇报时闹了乌龙,颇为窘迫。 林散之生于江苏南京市江浦县,祖籍安徽省和县乌江镇七棵松村。江浦与和县毗邻,虽分属两省,但历史上关系密切,江浦曾归属和州乌江县,和县也曾划归南京。现江浦县已经并入南京市浦口区,但不影响两地共同形成的长江西岸的重要沿江经济区。这一区域文化底蕴深厚,作为六朝金粉南京城的自然延伸和南渡北归的桥头堡,其实位于以南京为中心的宁镇扬-宁芜文化圈的核心地区,地理上则归属长江转南北向的皖江段,其富庶繁华自古不亚于苏锡常-湖嘉的太湖区域。在此诞生林散之这样的书法大师,并非偶然。 林散之自幼读书,喜诗文书画,十六岁在范培开的指导下学习柳公权和颜真卿等碑学书法;后在和县姐丈家教书,并从范培开的老师张栗庵学诗及文辞,书法亦获其指授,其字“散之”即为张栗庵所取。此后在家乡声名日著,又赴上海从黄宾虹学画山水。返乡后经历抗战,建国后被选为江浦县人代会常委,并曾任江浦县副县长和江苏省政协委员,退休调入江苏书画院,回归书画创作,成果日丰[5]。 虽曾从政,但他却是一名“只与古人争”的出世的艺术家,一心追求艺术造诣,从未被世事变迁所阻。其子林筱之也曾述,父亲是一个潇洒闲散的人,醉心诗书画作。林筱之得其父教导和熏陶,后也师从黄宾虹,在书法上造诣很高,尤擅隶书。这次书画院项目的推动,也和林筱之老先生渊源颇深。 师承 三十二岁时,林散之经张栗庵引荐去上海投师黄宾虹,是其艺术生涯中重大转折。 黄宾虹一生的创作中,诗、书、画、印无一不精,但最著名的还是画,为海内外公认的山水画大宗师。 黄宾虹祖籍新安江上游的歙县,生于新安江下游的金华,数十年往来于歙县、南京、安庆、扬州一代,后定居上海。作为近代黄山画派的著名代表人物,黄宾虹继承了从新安画派到黄山画派师法自然的传统,同时又博采众长,更在七十三岁衰年变法,成就黑密厚重、浑厚华滋的风格,成为一代大家。清代徽州篆刻兴盛,黄宾虹也是徽派篆刻的重要一员,并以金石碑学和书画相互印证,促进了他对笔墨的研究。 自师从黄宾虹后,林散之不仅画入其门,书亦得其法,对其书法风格的形成与发展具有重大的意义。 黄宾虹最重笔墨,他的最大特色,正是以书法为绘画和笔墨技法的根基,强调“以书入画”。林散之论书写到“笔从曲处还求直,意入圆时更觉方”[6],这一笔法原理就来自黄宾虹。 林散之的“以画入书”同样来自黄宾虹,但更加发扬光大,将黄宾虹绘画的笔墨技法再用回到书法之中,其中意趣耐人寻味。 黄宾虹教给林散之的另一个重要方法则是“师造化”,这也是中国古典美学的核心方法,黄山画派对此尤其看重,黄宾虹本人即在真山水悟道,林散之也自述牢记黄宾虹“师古人,更要师造化”的教导,孤身横跨九省万余里,在名山大川中大量写诗作画,开阔了眼界和胸襟,从自然山水中吸取了更多的养料,书法造诣再进一步。 10 东侧桥头看主入口©肖凯雄09 东立面©肖凯雄 二、地方文化与书法美学 项目选址 在林散之的祖籍地安徽和县乌江镇,为纪念他的艺术成就而设立了此次的安徽省林散之书画院项目,包含新建的书画院和易地复建的九牧堂古建筑,而在历史上九牧堂正是林氏宗族的祠堂,因而合建于一处。 素有“千年古镇,西楚乌江”之称的乌江镇号称皖江第一镇,自古因楚霸王乌江自刎不过江东而千古留名,文化底蕴深厚。当地建筑风格是典型的皖中民居,朴实清新的硬山坡屋顶错落有致,砖、木、石雕点缀其间;青瓦屋面之下,白墙和青砖各有存留。虽然古建筑所存已经很少,但建筑风貌还有迹可循。 项目的地块位于206省道和乌江大道交叉口,在已建成的林散之主题公园的东南部,地块南侧均为居住用地,现状仍是农田。西侧为沿街商业用地,东侧紧邻一条小河,河东另有一条老街有待整治恢复风貌。皖中名镇,临水而处,乡野之所,黑白简素的风格基调是最合适的选择。 但传统建筑形式由于材质和空间的局限性,并不适用于书画展览建筑的功能需求,不能直接使用。而原生现代建筑起源于西方,其语言遵从于西方美学。在西方美学史中,建筑、雕塑和绘画同为各个时期艺术风格的代表。这让我们想到,中国的书法由于其功能性,在整个世界艺术类别中都是非常独特的。书法的变迁在中国各个时代艺术风格的特征变化,可类比建筑在西方美术史中的地位。 林散之以当代草圣之誉,作为当地最重要的文化符号,其书画院的设计首先考虑的就是书法元素。但出于多方考虑,我们不可能以曲线形态完全模仿草书的形式,而只能从更抽象的美学层面寻求结合点。 师造化与书画的融合 笔者理解,在艺术脱离了写实和传统的依据之后,美的标准不得不依托于某种更抽象的标准,而建筑形式恰恰面临类似的问题。 师造化,向大自然学习,这在绘画中还比较容易理解:抽象、变形,汲取自然形中的某些特征要素,融入到绘画中,也是黄宾虹的成功之道,他也曾研究过西方格式塔心理学,西方艺术的印象派和表现主义均走过此路。 但将自然形象融入更为抽象的书法,则更为艰难。书法没有具象约束,草书更是连字形的约束都非常弱,美丑标准近乎完全取决于人内心的感知。这种自由度,对创作者提出了极高的要求,无迹可寻,西方当代艺术即面临类似的困境。 但在黄宾虹和林散之的创作理念里,书画本就高度相通,虽非首创,却是集大成者。因为中国汉字的象形特征,与绘画终究有所相似,黄宾虹将汉字的空间感和笔墨与绘画进行融合,以绘画为纽带,联系造化和书法,才有了林散之的师造化和以画入书。 林散之评价自己一生,诗的成就最高,也最用功,一生写诗不断,跟张栗庵学的也主要是诗文。他自小学画人像,跟黄宾虹主要是学山水画,书法总在其次,并画了大量精力编著《山水类编》。然而最后的结果却是林散之终以书法被中日书法界封圣,这与黄宾虹一生钻研书法金石、自言书胜过画,却终以绘画闻名一样,令人深思。 值得注意的是,黄宾虹和林散之,均是衰年变法,前者七十三岁由白转黑,后者六十岁始专草书,均是通习古今大半生,到了暮年才终获突破。这显然不是依靠天赋,而是终身的“勤、博、悟”的结果。 书法美学的启发 和很多纯艺术一样,书法对社会起到的是文化传承和美学熏陶的作用。但书法几乎没有硬件门槛,是每个人日常都会接触、最实用也最贴近普通人的艺术。也因为它的古老和独特,我们认为在中国的众多艺术门类中,书法最能代表中国美学的特色,也最具当代意义。 但特殊之处又在于,书法因为其高度抽象且高度普及,实际上对很多纯形式的视觉艺术都有借鉴作用,如同绘画是视觉艺术之母,书法对于中国人,就是抽象美学的核心标尺,并能够用于指导其他艺术门类的实践。 依照宗白华先生在《美学散步》中所述,书法美学在于“表达情感的同时反映出暗含的各种形象,或借这些形象的概况来暗示对这些形象的情感。书法是情景交融的意境,像中国画,更象音乐,像舞蹈,像优美的建筑。中国书法里结体的规律,也显示着中国人空间感的型式。”[7] 音乐、舞蹈、建筑甚至国画,均有类似的美学特征,以抽象的形表达情感。这些抽象艺术的美学特征,美学上称之为形式美的原则。而书法正是中国人的抽象形式美最普遍的训练方式。 当然,从绝对意义来说,纯形式并没有绝对的美丑高低的标准。在脑神经科学完全解释审美的生化原理之前,我们还无法确定审美的客观规律。 但实际上,人类总是会创造不同的审美体系,赋予抽象艺术以具体标准。 千年文化传承中的中国书法,其主流标准相对稳定,又能保持不断演变创新,进而形成独特的高度完善的书法美学体系,成为中国美学史的重要部分。这种美学体系,更多的是提供一种方向和方法,而非固定不变的僵化标准,看似玄学,但其中有一种微妙的整体客观性,因而我们至今仍然能够大体判断历代书法的美丑高低。 例如师古人和师造化,又例如虚实、疏密、黑白、轻重、缓急、方圆……有理由相信,这些形式美的要素在中国的各种艺术中有显著的通用性,因而可供同样抽象的音乐、建筑等类型借鉴。 黄宾虹教给林散之的,是宜“平、留、圆、重、雅”,忌“尖、滑、扁、轻、俗”[8],正是这样的美学标准。 而且中国书法因为象形,具有一种抽象的(二维)空间特征,与建筑的几何空间美学尤为贴近,因而有额外的相通性,能借此赋予本项目建筑以书法美学的某些特征(与之类似的是蒙德里安的绘画与现代建筑美学的关系)。因而可认为,在中国,书法和建筑在美学上是高度相通的。 这次的设计,希望通过建筑语言来表达出林散之书法的一丝风骨和传统文化的一些传承。 11 主馆入口©肖凯雄13 主馆东立面©肖凯雄15 主馆东南角©肖凯雄 三、项目设计构思 项目概况 项目包含展览和书画培训办公以及九牧堂三个功能,前两者合并在书画院中,共约2000平方米,两层,建筑高度约12米,北部为主要展示空间,南部作为书画院的功能用房,为创作、培训、接待使用。九牧堂约500平方米,局部两层,高度约8.5米,主要为纪念性空间。 书画院位于地块的北部,通过景观和展示场地与已建成的林散之纪念公园紧密相连,成为广场公园的延续。九牧堂位于地块南部,其形体方正,以“印”的寓意作为整个规划的结尾。 主入口设置于最北端,与城市道路相接,通过小型停车场地进行人群集散,主要人流沿河岸进入主广场。两个单体通过偏转形成正对于河流的八字形广场,也强化了广场的引导性。地块西侧设计坡地景观“七棵松”,将周边现状建筑遮蔽,为地块内提供了良好的景观。正好栽种七棵松树以符合七颗松村的做法虽有些稚拙,倒也不失古趣。 总体布局的书画寓意 林散之是当代“诗书画”三绝的草圣,设计就以中国传统书画为原型,提取诗、书、画、印四个主要构成元素,将公园与广场视作“画”,以林散之书画院作为“诗”,并用“书法”的形式表现出来,而方正的九牧堂又恰好可拟作“印”,同其他三个元素构成完整的一幅古典长卷。 地块本身形状很不规整,边界曲折,颇有草书自由姿纵的特性。通过甄选林散之各个时期的作品,选取了其名字中的“之”为载体,以书画院功能为诗,用建筑书法将它书写在所在地块的这幅画上。 “散之”原为“三痴”的谐音,“之”字本身并无实际含义,此处应是作音节助词。考虑到林散之格外重视的书法二王“王羲之”、“王献之”,因而选取此古人多用却无实际含义,又形态自由曲折的“之”字做建筑的载体,恰好契合草书的特性。同时,错落而有序的建筑组合方式,也符合安徽传统村落的构图特征。 在异形的地块上,通过一长一方,一曲一直的体量,组合构成了林散之书画院建筑群,也划分出不同的景观场地和室外展区。 东侧为展厅的主入口,九牧堂与北部展厅的形体关系形成了“八”字形的入口广场,将对面河流古街等景观引入的同时,也符合徽州民居八字大门的传统,寓有欢迎之意;广场中间向西北延伸出景观廊道,引出书画院的次入口。 0分析图总体布局 建筑形态的“之”形妙趣 书法上气韵灵动的“之”,民居中古拙朴实的长屋,狭窄而长的街道,自然环境下蜿蜒起伏的山脉,门前蜿蜒流淌的河水,与林散之师造化的书法,难免有着异曲同工之处。建筑设计由此入手,结合展览建筑的功能特性,生成了以林散之的“之”为载体的一系列线性展览空间。 立面设计也同样将“之”作为设计元素,提取了“之”起伏的形态,以及林散之书法瘦劲飘逸的特点,同时结合乌江老街延绵的粉墙黛瓦坡屋顶的特征,生成了林散之书法和乌江文化相结合的立面形态。 空间中“情境”的表达 书法的美学不在于字体结构的组合变换,而在于情境的表达,既是通过具体的物象表达情感,又是借由情感反映出形象,讲求情境交融。在建筑空间上,延续了这一特征。 首先是建筑与环境的交融,在入口大厅朝向庭院的方向设置四幅连续的透明景框,以庭院之景为画,碑林林立,四时之景,各有不同。在庭院中也可见大厅中人的行走,亦是动态的画面。通过上下两个之的错动形成的二层露台的设置,提供各个方向的观景场所,尽可能的将周边景观融入建筑中。 再者是人与人的交汇,设置了由下而上,通过连廊走出,自露台而回,上下交融内外转圜的参展流线。展品并不局限于展厅内的布置,交互的人群、外界的涌入的风景,以及空间留白本身,皆为展品。丰富而曲折的立体展示流线,也呼应了草书的形态特征。 中国传统建筑的空间形式中,廊是用于连接和过渡室内外空间层次的经典元素。在现代建筑语言中,可归作灰空间(半开放空间),以达到室内外融合的目的。在主入口处利用二层屋檐交错的出挑,形成通高的柱廊,引导主要人流和视线,双细柱的造型形成了特有的韵律感,强调出入口的标识度。建筑二层的露台以及南部的两层体量交错处,也设计了不同形态的柱廊,或是出入口处遮阳避雨,或是供人观景小憩,因借随宜。 构图中书法、墨法的借用 不同的檐廊的边界做了不同的造型设计,或是双柱,或是四柱,又有宽窄不一的片墙组合。灵感源自于林散之书法中枯笔的墨法,飞白的呈现,共同点在于虚实疏密的相似构图。 笔画中间夹杂着丝丝点点的白痕,且能给人以飞动的感觉,与浓墨、涨墨产生对比,以加强作品的韵律感和节奏感,利用“飞白”使书写显现苍劲浑朴的艺术效果,使作品增加情趣,丰富画面的视觉效果。同理,在建筑造型上,不同形态的柱廊也完形了建筑体量,更使得建筑形态有了丰富的虚实关系和光影变幻的立面效果。 书画院建筑为两层,形态各有曲折又相互交错,结构感强烈,模拟书法笔划的构成方式。体量瘦长且虚实变化,以期呈现出林散之书法瘦劲飘逸的特点,即所谓的“金石趣味”。 在西北部,正对已建成的公园景观刻意做了一面完整的白墙,仅做几处留缝和开洞,作为背景,视为底色。临近的竹林和碑林是此处的主角,日光月色,投影其上,碑林矗立,竹影婆娑,恰似一幅活的水墨画。 16 大厅南入口©肖凯雄21 主馆西南端柱廊©肖凯雄18 主馆南立面©肖凯雄23 主馆北庭院©肖凯雄22 主馆西立面©肖凯雄17 南侧庭院©肖凯雄 朴拙的材质以避滑俗 林散之主张以楷书、行书为基础,根基扎实方可习得草书精髓,并不一味追求草书的秀,讲究随心而发,“意在笔先,字居心后”,最忌“滑俗”,意在“朴拙”[9]。有趣的是,当地传统的皖中民居亦有此特性。 书画院提取了当地建筑的要素特征,黑白为色彩基调,不采用装饰性的外立面材料,仅通过几何手法加以提炼表达,创造出丰富的空间,在保留古典韵味的同时呈现出简洁明快又曲折多变的整体形象。 九牧堂因为复建的性质,设计成徽派传统木结构建筑,以白墙灰瓦、飞檐翘角和马头墙为主要元素,周边竹林环绕,绿影白墙,古意盎然。与书画院形成对比,又相互呼应。 规矩与自由的统一 选择规矩的方形还是复杂的曲线形,是一开始就需要考虑的问题。根据林散之“笔从曲处还求直,意入圆时更觉方”、“用软毫写硬字”的书法理念,和先楷书后草书的次序,我们最终选择了寓曲于直、化圆为方的折中路线,无论是造型还是造价,都更符合林散之书法的美学标准。不能呆板,也不能滑俗,并且符合皖中民居和现代建筑的基本语言。 林散之自述从“早期游骋于法度之中”到晚年“不拘于法”,其实是一种随心所欲不逾矩的表现。在建筑工程中,空间折线形体的复杂度已经足够高,对结构设计也造成了不小的压力。曲直方圆之间的这种分寸与次序的关系,也是我们希望在设计中表达的。 建成之后的观感也基本符合我们的预期,低缓的轮廓,交错的形体,多变的空间效果,加上景观绿植的衬托,曲直错落,光影变幻,黑白起伏,远观似山水画卷。 其周边众多空间的转折变化尤其超出预期,但也因此很难被照片表达,只有如同古人缓慢展开长卷一般,在时间中穿越空间的序列,才能如实表达这种曲折的空间关系。 最终的施工精度其实并不很高,但这些也在我们的预料之中,这几乎是在中小城镇做建筑必然面对的重要问题。利用造型设计本身的曲折多变,让建成后显然并不挺直的建筑边角,看似如同徒手钢笔画的线条抖动,也就以一种乡土民居的朴拙,掩盖了施工精度的不足。 诚然,本项目的设计,远达不到林散之先生书法境界的万分之一,但我们仍然尽力遵循他的书法美学所指出的方向而努力,如果没有草书高度复杂感性的美学支持,也不可能采用这种复杂的建筑形式。能承担林散之书画院的设计,也是我们莫大的荣幸。 28 施工中的二层外廊©潘静29 施工中的九牧堂大门©袁牧26 主展厅南望©肖凯雄25 主展厅北端©肖凯雄 后记 林散之一生主要活动于皖江两岸,经历坎坷,性情隐忍随和,在七十四岁之前并不出名,几乎只是苏皖地域的一个普通文化人而已。但一经发现,却足以震惊书法界,封为大师。 笔者以为这并不奇怪,江淮大地本就人文深厚、千古传承,明清六百年更是中国人文鼎盛之地。林散之的师承更是一代宗师黄宾虹,甚至其启蒙老师范培开虽湮没无闻,其书法起点也并不低。 同时,林散之虽低调谦和不与人争,隐居江北一隅,但却有“与古人争一地位”、“要站几百年不朽”[10]的远大志向,通学苦练历代名家碑帖、孤身游历名山大川,六十年厚积薄发,锐意创新、暮年变法也未曾迟疑。虽然没有留洋背景,老师也都是安徽老乡,但无论起点、方法、意志、和环境师承资源,其实都具备了顶尖书法家的条件。所以无论是否最终得奖封圣,都无损其书法超一流的水准和价值。 与之相似的是整个中国书法艺术,在世界上也是孤独的地域文化,甚至唐诗宋词皆是如此,不可能得到非中文国家的共鸣。但这从不会影响和动摇我们对这些古老艺术的认同、学习和传承。“书同文”,汉字两千年来在国家统一中起了不可估量的作用,即便并不为西方所理解。书法在文化传承上也有着类似的情况。真正的优秀艺术并不需要外界的比较和认可,仍然能够深刻的影响和推动文明向前发展。在美学艺术上,我们是自己的最高权威,如同对美食的绝对自信一样。 笔者认为,中国的地域建筑文化同样如此,并不需要焦虑于外来的认同。除了遵从基本的科学工程规律和理性需求,对自己的历史文化和艺术传统有自信,坚持传承和创新,终能契合于本土文化的发展需求。 西立面北立面东立面西立面剖面图2二层平面1一层平面0总图 设计方江苏东方建筑设计有限公司 项目设计 & 完成年份2017&2019 主创及设计团队主持建筑师:袁牧 方案建筑师:潘静、余东亚、胡娟 施工图负责人:尚宁宁建筑:尚宁宁、陈姝、魏文昊 结构:李叶、刘涛、谈技威电气:刘祖斌、王瑛、韩红喜给排水:赵子明、王定国、黄国清暖通:张景晟、张振兰、徐春荣 项目地址安徽省马鞍山市和县乌江镇 建筑面积2585㎡ 摄影版权肖凯雄、袁牧、潘静 合作方项目管理:华夏幸福环南京区域事业部 景观设计:深圳源创易景观设计有限公司 室内设计:上海室内装饰(集团)有限公司 施工单位:安徽君安建筑安装有限公司 参考文献: [1][8]林散之.《林散之序跋文集》,1991年 [2]林散之.《林散之书法集》自序,2015年 [3][9]林散之.林散之谈书法(二).《老年教育(书画艺术)》,2011年 [4][5]林散之书画院官网.http://www.linsanzhi.cc [6]林散之.《论书十绝》,1977年 [7]宗白华.《美学散步》,1981年 [10]林散之.林散之谈艺录.《老年教育(书画艺术) 》,2012年 来源:知乎 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  • 二次疫情对游戏行业流水的影响以及其它

    知乎每日精选 · Fri, 22 Jul 2022 14:41:39 +0800

    最近个人的精神和心态都不算是特别好。心情不佳之下再加上这两天看了非常多经济数据,觉得游戏行业应难以独善其身。于是周末反正没太多事情可干,做了一些小调研。 平时我基本只看海外市场,就海外市场而言,2022年的整体环境囿于多个原因,收入的下降是比较明显的。此前也在朋友圈有过简单梳理。 基本上原因比较明确:海外主要市场疫情后用户时长缩短,俄乌冲突导致欧洲消费意愿下降,以及市面上缺乏较大规模的新作上线——但纵使如此,美日韩这样的主流市场,增长仍然在持续。结果如何只能以观后效,毕竟美国经济也不好不是么。 - 国内市场我本身基本属于文盲水平,平时只能通过AA和ST去看第三方的数据。但是这两个平台因为缺乏安卓端数据,而且iOS端的数据也不会非常准确。所以为了了解更多信息只能采取“我朋友系列“的研究方法了。 方法如下图,我在朋友圈和知乎都问了这么个问题: 好在朋友捧场,大概4个小时左右的时间里,我在双平台拿到的样本大概有20多个,基本上来说符合基础统计学样本置信度。 免责声明一下,这不是一篇严肃的统计学文章,只是写一下我能看到的现象加上多年研究移动端流水的小经验。我的结论只符合我朋友圈给出的数据,肯定有偏差。如果读者所在的产品有明显高于增长情况或是衰减速度更快的,欢迎留言或者私信给予数据进行修正。 - 从数学建模得到的大盘情况: 综合了一下我日常监测的第三方数据加权,加上朋友圈几位大厂的数据分析朋友给出的结果及讨论。我们可以明显看到4月份以来有明确的下降——但如果我们按照top 500的产品来看实际上降幅并不算多。基于AppAnnie的数据,我们用不同的建模加权来看,大致上环比的降幅在1%到5%。与去年4月同期相比有正负1-3%的波动。 增长的部分: 其实Q2的情况对于一些大厂来说结果是不错的,这点比较出乎我意料,但是也合情合理。 最明显的增长来自于腾讯旗下几个大DAU游戏,基本上都要比Q1的表现更加强劲。虽然存在近期鹅厂游戏大量商业化活动提振收入的可能性,但主要市场封控,以及如深圳、北京在内的大城市间歇性在家工作的情况,确实造成了玩家在相对下行的周期涌入了游戏中。 除了头部的大DAU产品来看,泛休闲赛道其实有着不错的增长。包括超休闲,棋牌,农场类的产品,都有朋友给出了该游戏收入增长的信息。如果我们将H5小游戏也纳入考量的话,甚至有产品月增长达到50%的。 但与之相对的是,国内IAA的eCPM有着明显下降。所以,以好的方式来理解的话,休闲游戏甚至可能出现N倍的情况;而坏的方式来理解,愿意花钱在广告上的广告主实际上在下降的。 衰减的部分: 相反,重氪游戏的消息并不算太好。我此次询问没有获得头部产品的数据,但有不少次头部(畅销榜稳定Top 50-200)产品的消息。结果并不是特别乐观。 在SLG和卡牌品类里,收入都有极其明显的下滑。逻辑上来说这是说得通的,很多重度氪金游戏的商业化都靠大R撑起来,在目前经济状况不理想的情况下,削减在游戏领域的非必要开支也是一个较为理性的选择。在我得知的情况中,最好的一个项目收入下降在15%,最差的一个项目收入只剩3月的30%。而短期来看,这种情况很可能不会有太大改变。 新游戏同样也有类似影响。新上线的产品从绝对收入来看有一些产品是不及预期的——甚至头部游戏也受到了影响,如大资源发行的《重返帝国》,目前畅销榜位置下降也很明显。固然或许有产品本身的问题,但受众消费意愿下降也可能是一个潜在原因。 二次元游戏的情况其实也不是特别理想。在我唯一询问到的一个项目来看,收入大概有30%的衰减;而B站博主二次元观察给出的赛道数据大概是25%。这个数据我相信会因为原神新版本上线之后有所缓解,但很难说可以直接反弹到原有水平。 小机会和总结: 我认为以目前的休闲品类情况,类似合成大西瓜的机会应该是存在的。但因为eCPM的下降要赚大钱或许机会不太大。尤其是目前北京情况吃紧,玩家对相对休闲的小游戏的需求是存在的。 不过重氪类游戏在这波打击之下的情况难言乐观。经济下行导致的重氪意愿下滑是不做调研也是可以想见的——而确实这次小的调研证实了此推断。而即使是彻底开封的反弹,消费也更多会在衣食住行上,而非在疫情封控期间能够较简单触达的游戏产品。 大量的在家工作引起的工作效率下降,以及收入前景的悲观对于行业来说不是太好的消息。新一轮版号之前有消息,现在又因为一些听起来不可思议的原因要延期。这针强心剂要是再晚点,尿壶举起来的时候就肾结石了。 但整体来说,中国游戏行业遇到大的危机的情况比我想得要快了至少一年,本来以为泡沫会因为大家钱拿得多,好东西却做不出来而破灭,现在的问题则要严重多了。出海能不能解决一定问题,或许能,但你没有足够的储备(资源,人才,钱),怎么去这个战场卷呢? 还是那句话,里尔克是咋说的来着。不过是“有何胜利可言?挺住意味着一切”罢了。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 知乎用户(登录查看详情) 点击下载

  • 重估腾讯式赛道方法的价值,或商分/战略在游戏重塑时代的落地思考

    知乎每日精选 · Fri, 22 Jul 2022 14:40:54 +0800

    本篇只谈商业产品,只谈商业产品立项/改动。不谈游戏性,不谈情怀。仅代表个人意见。 TL; DR: 对于现有游戏改良/老游戏大改版而言,通过steam寻找玩法原型,通过头部集中度判断机会,结合市场调查数据给出现有游戏的改良方向,是可落地的。 游戏商分的价值在于整体的广度和小范围的深度,寻找机会的能力在现在的竞争态势下尤其重要。 - 最近全球市场上一些产品无论是重新立项还是彻底重构,都开始开花结果,往前推一年,好像2021年自己是做过一些分析类服务的。一方面来说,看到自己的成果能够反应到产品(而非单纯的市场策略)上,其实还是有些开心的;但另一方面来看,当时在承接一些工作的时候,自己的思维模式还不够成熟,复盘来看其实有更多东西可以做(而没有做到),是比较可惜的。 通常而言,商业游戏的重构会被简单地以“换皮”一概而论。在竞争不充分,市场红利还存在的时刻,这种说法有一定合理性。但是以现在的市场状况以及更加刁钻的玩家要求下,纯美术领域的换皮其实已经没有太多竞争优势了。即使是美术的简单更替,往往需要游戏流程的优化甚至副玩法的更动。 通常这个阶段,fellow商分s就会被老板喊去,“看看这个赛道怎么做”(好了终于提到标题了),“看看某某赛道还有没有某某机会”。但是是,尤其是在现在的阶段,什么才算是“赛道机会”? 赛道论其实是移动游戏时代以来,由腾讯所完善的一种方法论。在腾讯以及游戏投资的黄金年代,这套理论基本指导了腾讯的行动。即使在今天,这一方法论(应该)已经被迭代了多次的情况下,他们的原始逻辑也值得我们再思考。 怎么去界定赛道?腾讯的做法其实是简单粗暴的。拿一张19年腾讯的PPT来简单说一下(这ppt都四年了,讲一下没事儿吧)。 赛道论的切分实际上是由核心玩法进行的切分。腾讯的研究团队认为,创新的爆款玩法通常来自于MOD制作者在游戏中制作的原型,这个原型会被其他游戏发扬光大,最终因完成度/市场机遇而成为爆款。这些处于早期的潜力玩法或是玩法结合就构成了新赛道。 除了玩法之外,市场的头部集中度也是一个问题。腾讯认为,当一个赛道前三的产品总收入占整体赛道收入较高比例的情况下,就证明这个赛道竞争难度大。反之亦然。而是否通过赛道的竞争难度去进行赛道的投资则是另一个问题,case by case嘛。 我一直不是腾讯的赛道切分思路的粉丝。原因大致有这几条: 1)游戏分类学是主观的事情,分类标准的不同通常会引导至结论的偏差。标签分类不同,标签下的产品组合也会有区别,举例而言,当你用“日式卡牌”和“开放世界”两个不同的标签去看《原神》的时候,选择的对标产品是有区别的,在这种区别下,一个数据能力很强却缺乏行业认知的人,就可能给出“日式卡牌”赛道值得大做特做的说法。 2)根据现存的游戏分类去做项目研究,本质上是缘木求鱼。对于新项目尤其是创新项目而言,所有的既存信息都有着非常明显的滞后性。譬如《光遇》在上线前,任何一个研究人寰是完全没有办法用已有标签去对这款游戏进行预判。 这其实给多数商分工作带来了困境。归根结底,游戏领域商分的研究方式其实只有两种:其一,是体验式的,即大量地玩游戏,并且从自己的体验中获得心得,所谓“书读百遍其义自见”;其二,是非体验式的,无论是案头研究,写sql捞数据做分析,还是问卷,用户访谈都是如此。无论是体验式的玩游戏,还是去大量地做访谈,我们其实很难真的去判断一个创新玩法到底能不能成。而到了可以上线测试的阶段,商分的作用已经只剩下了分析测试数据了(甚至项目组也不会真的把这个机会给你)。 在“新机会的发现”的时候,不实际参与研发,我们是很难真正去影响一个产品的立项及开发方向的;如果我们的场景从“新机会的发现”转移到“老游戏的改良/革新“之后,腾讯的赛道逻辑确实能够解决传统分析方法的一大短板。即非体验型市场研究数据的后验性。 为何说老游戏的改版是用这个思路是可行的呢?因为对于老游戏而言,他们的核心玩法或者根本的商业化模式已经很难有大的更动了——卡牌RPG游戏很难转化为SLG,SLG页不可能转化为换装。在这种情况下我们在挑选玩法原型的时候,就可以从无论是Steam抑或是应用商店的大标签下,去寻找商业成绩未必非常惊艳,但玩法稳定的产品。并且根据这些产品的玩法去做跟现有产品混合的评估。 另外,腾讯的头部集中度评估也是个值得参考的指标。当一个玩法有太多的头部产品已经适配了的情况下,它或许仍然是能吸引人的,但未必能达到爆款获量的惊喜结果。 在这种情况下,即使是对于游戏经验不足的fellow商分s,他们需要体验的游戏也有限。而对于经验丰富的人来说,这是一个聚焦的思路。 举例来说,最近行业经常谈论的《阿瓦隆之王》的换皮就是一个值得去思考的案例。《阿瓦隆之王》的革新采用的了《Badnorth》作为新增的副玩法原型——《Badnorth》本身就有着与《阿瓦隆之王》类似的题材,游戏的玩法也属于策略相关。结合后验的市场数据,我们可以较容易看到两个产品的结合可能。在此情况下,体验玩法原型游戏,结合目标游戏做评估,再根据评估结果对以玩法素材进行改动优化,或是直接制作mvp版本进行测试,是一个能够提升效率的方法。 当然,怎么通过标签的切分去寻找到合适的范围又是个问题。我个人的思路是玩法和主题均切分到二级标签(如策略-4x策略;历史-中世纪),交叉取交集选产品(即中世纪策略;或是历史4x)。这个我也没有太多的经验,很可能纸上谈兵。 理想状态来看,fellow商分s应当成为公司第二懂公司所专注的几条“赛道”的人。我们的竞争力在于比制作人懂其他的“赛道”,比其他人懂所有关注的赛道。这其实是要求了我们更深入地去了解自己的产品,竞争对手的产品。并且从产品的理解上升到宏观,而非从宏观的数据去看具体的产品。 但现实点,以目前各家游戏公司的招人需求,能够获得职位的人,大多数是咨询向背景的人,有较广守备范围的玩家的比例是比较少的。而大多数游戏商分们现阶段要回答的问题不再只是“做什么好‘,并加以论证。而是“做什么好,别人怎么做的,以及最重要的,我们怎么能在这个领域找到新的机会“。 其实也是个持续自省。尤其是fellow商分s应该思考,我们有多少次没有给可供决策的思路了?Make impact不应该只是某一家公司的文化,我们作为幕僚,参谋,军师,是应当更多发挥落地的作用的。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 知乎用户(登录查看详情) 点击下载

  • 《英雄联盟》「极地大乱斗」模式有哪些鲜为人知的细节和机制?

    知乎每日精选 · Fri, 22 Jul 2022 13:11:27 +0800

    守护者系列装备大伙们都出过吧?其中守护者之刃、守护者战锤、守护者法球光是加的基础属性就能完爆同价位任何小件,更何况它们还会被计算成一件成装给神话装更高收益,不过这系列里也有一个较为另类的装备:守护者号角 150生命值也就价值一个400的红水晶,其价值主要在下面的两个被动效果上,似乎并不好直接用金币来衡量,但我相信只要你出过这件装备,在游戏结束前点一下自己守护者号角就能发现这装备把把都能抵挡三四千伤害,多的时候上万也不是没可能。 本文也正式为你揭晓——作为守护者系列里基础属性加得最少的装备,守护者号角是如何改变极地环境的。 一、回复属性详解 也许大家对这个“每5秒回复20生命值”的数值没什么概念,我这边拿英雄的基础属性给大家做个参考,大部分脆皮射手的基础生命回复在3.5-5这个区间(每5秒,以下所有数据都是这个单位),法师在5.5-7左右,坦克和战士的话大部分能高于7但也不会超过10: 哪怕到了18级,大部分英雄算上成长生命回复后也很难超过20: 除此之外,英雄联盟在早前某次版本更新后,绿豆加的生命回复不再是固定数值而是跟英雄的基础生命回复挂钩 这个改动使得部分基础生命回复较少的脆皮英雄出绿豆性价比会非常差,而守护者号角里增加的固定数值显然成为了那次版本更新的漏网之鱼,这意味着除了前排坦克战士,部分脆皮英雄在面对多poke阵容时也能出守护者号角抗压。 如果要计算价值的话,按全联盟基础生命回复最高的蔚来算(10/每五秒),仅这个复原力效果就价值2个治疗宝珠,约等于600金币,对于部分基础生命回复只有3-4的脆皮来说,这个复原力效果的价值则高达5-6个治疗宝珠(1500-1800金币) 至此,加上基础属性里价值400金币的150生命值,守护者号角的价值至少是已经回本了的,但加的这些基础属性显然不是重头戏,接下来为大家详细介绍其“不屈不挠”的减伤机制。 二、减伤机制详测 首先是完全不减伤的三种情况: 1.来自英雄召唤物的伤害不减。包括但不限于大头炮台、蚂蚱虫子、婕拉的花。 2.来自部分装备和技能的伤害不减。包括但不限于诺手被动、男刀被动、大面具等。(这些装备技能伤害类型被判定为dafault damage,比较显著的特征是不会触发黑暗收割) 3.来自全真伤技能的伤害不减。 这里要注意的是新版格温中心Q造成真伤+魔法伤害、莉莉娅外圈Q造成真实+魔法伤害这种混伤还是会从造成的魔法伤害里面格挡伤害。 然后是满额减伤的四种情况: 1.英雄的平A(远程近战都是15,其中寒冰Q、泽丽Q这种多段伤害平A也只会被判定为1次平A减少15点伤害)、部分装备(发电机、永霜)。 2.部分英雄强化平A类技能以及平A2次的被动都能全额减少2次总共30点伤害。包括但不限于佛耶戈被动、卢锡安被动、狗头Q、EZ Q、盖伦Q、诺手W这类技能。 3.非持续伤害的多段伤害技能。包括但不限于大头W、格温QR、卡特R、炸弹人E、乌鸦QR,这些都是每段伤害减少15点的技能,其中大头W和乌鸦Q吃满的话都算是命中了5次,一个技能减少5x15=75点伤害。 4.能释放多次的技能。包括但不限于瑞文Q、剑魔Q、冰鸟Q。 25%减伤的情况: 1.持续伤害。包括但不限于蚂蚱E、蚂蚱R等。 2.持续范围伤害。包括但不限于末日W,死歌E。 相信大家看到这里一定有个疑问,乌鸦R、末日R这类多段伤害技能和上述死歌E、末日W有啥区别,为啥前面这俩每段伤害减少15点伤害,后面这俩减免伤害效率又只有25%了呢? 在lolwiki里实际上对这类技能有一个统称DOT(damage over time),意为随着时间推移造成的伤害,而DOT技能又分为四类,persistent damage(持续伤害),persistent area damage(持续范围伤害),periodic damage(周期伤害),area damage(范围伤害),其中前两种带persistent才是装备描述中会减少格挡效率的技能: 后面两种伤害虽然大多也是AOE多段伤害,但并不会影响守护者号角的收益。 乌鸦R被判定为area damage(范围伤害),并没携带persistent这个词条,故大招每段伤害都会被守护者号角减少15点。 末日W被判定为Persistent area damage(持续伤害),故W每段伤害只会被守护者号角减少3.75点。 最后是一些特殊的判定: 1.卡莎Q 卡莎的Q进化前是6段伤害,进化后是12段伤害,按理来说应该是只能抵抗15×0.25x6=22.5或15x0.25x11=45伤害才对, 但是实际测试中我发现卡莎Q的第一段伤害会被全额抵挡,后续多出来的弹体才会减少格挡效率,也就是计算公式为15+15x0.25x5=33.75或15+15x0.25x11=56.25。 2.盖伦E 盖伦E技能有一个机制是对最近的敌人造成额外伤害,但由于这个伤害是额外多一个数值显示的,所以总共会造成多一倍的伤害频率,这就使得没攻速时转7次的盖伦E被减少了14次伤害,14x0.25x15=52.5。 3.沙皇W 总地来说,个人测试一圈并查阅wiki相关描述后发现很多原先以为是持续伤害技能,但实际上属于周期性伤害技能和范围伤害技能如末日R、乌鸦R,这就使得守护者号角在面对这种高频次伤害技能时要比装备字面描述和大家的直观感受强度更高,在对抗上部分英雄时的坦度提升完全能够堪比一件成装。 三、其对乱斗环境的影响 守护者号角的存在让同等经济下的前排英雄相对召唤师峡谷里肉很多,ADC玩家攻速装收益减少(你攻击频率越高他守护者号角收益越高),如果不奔着高攻击力和破甲装去增加单次平A伤害出的话很容易打不动守护者号角前排,且同时如果双方都有守护者号角前排那么团战时间一定会相较峡谷里更长,这也导致了大多数极地对局中致命节奏和征服者等持续作战符文收益会比你想象中的要高。 四、一些乱斗建议 1.前排英雄在遇到多长手(泽拉斯、维鲁斯、炸弹人等)、伤害频率高或平A增益类技能较多的阵容时(EZ、卡特、沙皇、乌鸦等)非常推荐出一个守护者号角,面对前者你能够通过守护者号角复原力的回复效果保持一个不错的状态,面对后者减伤效果倍儿棒。 2.在输出环境恶劣的情况下部分软辅和发育型ADC也能通过守护者号角增加生存能力,这里的发育型ADC一定要是那种装备起来了之后能打得动对方守护者号角前排的射手如VN、大嘴这类后期大核,其他AD还是老老实实守护者战锤吧。 3.在对方有1个以上守护者号角前排英雄时,推荐ADC玩家无脑选择海妖、多米尼克、无尽三件套去增加单次平A伤害,尽可能地减少守护者号角能削减你伤害的频次,相信我,狂风/盾弓+火炮这种出装就别想着能打动极地里同等发育的守护者号角前排了。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com Ash 点击下载 9 个回答,查看全部。 《英雄联盟》大乱斗模式有哪些优点? 《英雄联盟》大乱斗中适合使用哪些英雄?

  • 精酿啤酒的口感是不是比普通啤酒好,为什么?

    知乎每日精选 · Fri, 22 Jul 2022 11:14:52 +0800

    大部分精酿的口感,会比中低端的「工业啤酒」要好。 为什么会有「大部分」和「中低端」两个限定呢? 因为精酿的说法更多出于酿酒师、酒企的角度:精心酿造,小、但追求美;而好喝或者口感好,是出于我们消费者的角度。 ——说白了,精心酿造的啤酒未必能让大家都满意,尤其是口味、口感这种偏个人的东西。 很多人提到了两者在发酵工艺、麦芽、酒花和酵母上的区别。 但一些中高端的「工业啤酒」,在用料和工艺上和精酿啤酒并没有明显的区别。 那精酿啤酒能带给我们什么呢? 一、「精酿」是一种丰富的体验 它是开瓶后的惊喜,是多元的感官之美和文化之旅。 如果你是一个喜欢「探险」的吃货,精酿绝对是你尝试不同风格啤酒的好机会。 毕竟在精酿推广以前,我们可以选择的不多:美式拉格一、美式拉格二还是美式拉格三? 而这点恰好是精酿的强项。 IPA、小麦啤、古斯、世涛、果啤等等,总有一款能满足你的味蕾。 因为职业的关系,我会不时和朋友们针对某一风格的啤酒进行大扫货,把市面上能买到的啤酒都买全了,然后以「研究的态度」来对比品尝。 我是要做研究 (公款吃喝?),他们是真爱喝、真敢试啊 (蹭吃蹭喝!) 作为一名普通的吃货,精酿大概是「开瓶有惊喜」。 比如,在品尝酸啤酒的时候,你能感受到千变万化,或尖锐、或柔和、或协调、或古怪的「酸味」在你的舌尖上流淌。 有那么一瞬间,你仿佛推开了新世界的大门。 柏林小麦酸啤:哎哟,尖锐且冲击强烈的乳酸味,莫不是做麦芽时候乳酸加多了? 法拉德斯红色艾尔:丰富、收敛的酸感,从舌尖到舌根都有不同的感受;不是所有品尝者都喜欢,但却不得不承认这是场独特的味觉体验。 古斯:还是更喜欢这种丰富、柔和的酸感,谷物、果香味和酸味的平衡比较协调;当然,前提是好的古斯。 水果兰比克:入口时突出的水果香气、滋味,收口时的酸爽,也是一种独特的酸感;体验受水果种类的影响比较大,树莓类的香气不够张扬,(个人)不太喜欢。 除了感官之美,精酿还是一场让人津津乐道的文化之旅。 ——不同风格啤酒的背后,往往隐藏着特别有意思的历史、 文化故事。 比方说,IPA (India Pale Ale)被创造出来的初衷,居然是为了让啤酒能多保存几个月。 啤酒花中葎草烯、酚类等抗氧化物质能够延长啤酒的保质期。所以,在大量酒花的投放下,啤酒才能够从英国出发,两次穿越赤道后到达印度而不变质,满足长途海运贸易的需要。 当然,当时的IPA只是一个默默无闻的「长保质期啤酒」。 它能正式地走上精酿的舞台离不开现代化的酒花培育技术,在放大酒花香气的同时让苦味变柔和,才让IPA变成了一种特点更突出、鲜明和让人喜爱的啤酒。 除了IPA,像波特、世涛、兰比克这些啤酒的诞生也有它们背后好玩的故事。 对于喝酒的人来说,精酿啤酒是多元的感官之美和文化之旅。 很多知友( @HAKU @老蟹 )已经从技术、口感评测方面作答了,我来从酿酒师、酒企的角度来说下「精酿啤酒」的出处。 二、精酿是包容、创新和追求卓越 「精酿啤酒」(craft beer) 的概念其实最早来源于「精酿酒厂」(craft brewer)。 后者的定义是由美国酿酒协会 (即BA, Brewers Association) 在2006年给出的,在2007、2010、2014和2018年陆续进行了4次修订。 在2018年的最新版本中,BA对精酿酒厂的定义是「小型」和「独立」 (第三条要求比较宽松)。 小型:年产量≤600万桶; 独立:相对独立,被非精酿酒厂控股的产权占比不超过25%; 酒厂要求:需在联邦烟酒税务与贸易局(TTB)备案,需生产啤酒。 这些条例一方面定义了「小型」,用以帮助小酒厂减免税费,让它们在大酒厂的规模优势下更好地发展; 另一方面,也是鼓励小型酒厂在行业中保持独立、创新精神,持续开发出更多新的酒类风格。 除了「创新」以外,精酿一词还有「追求卓越」和「包容」的意思。 在2007年的初版中,BA对精酿啤酒的原料类型是有要求的: 原料必须是全麦芽 (all-malt),以此来区别以玉米、糖浆等辅料来降低成本的平价工业啤酒 (adjunt beers)。 在随后的修订中,BA对精酿啤酒原料、类型的要求也开始逐步放宽: 他们希望精酿的定义更有包容性,一方面让爱酒的人可以自由选择喜欢的风格、种类(而不是被官方的定义约束); 另一方面可以支持更多走多元化路线的小型酒厂,让行业呈现一种百花齐放的景象(它们生产不同酒类、或不同风格的啤酒,根据以往的标准不被认定为精酿酒厂)。 在这种包容性和税收支持下,美国的精酿行业在上世纪初禁酒令的打击下逐步缓了过来,并在80年代左右开始蓬勃发展。 也就是说,「精酿啤酒」从酿酒师、酒企的角度来看,会更具象化: 包容、创新和追求卓越的精神。 最后 我会推荐大家去尝试精酿啤酒。 除了可以体验到不同风格的啤酒 (大部分惊喜+小部分惊吓),还可以了解到啤酒背后有意思的故事,和酿酒师们追求卓越的精神。 但对于题目来说,精酿啤酒的口感很难用好或者不好去描述,因为这是很个人的喜好。 精酿就是小,但追求美。 酿酒师的「美」,是包容、创新和追求卓越的精神; 喝酒人的「美」,是开瓶后的惊喜,是多元的感官之美和文化之旅。 ——谢谢阅读。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 知乎用户(登录查看详情) 点击下载 139 个回答,查看全部。 精酿啤酒比普通啤酒好喝吗?在口感上有哪些区别? 精酿啤酒的味道都怎么样?好喝么?

  • 家里不给买相机感觉心里不平衡?

    知乎每日精选 · Thu, 21 Jul 2022 16:06:50 +0800

    我的第一个相机也是大学时候。 一个二手的海鸥DF1。那时候还没网络和二手交易,我在寄售店买的。265元。 这个大约是我一个月生活费。 大一时候想拍照,所以用了一学期节约生活费,在靠过年时候拿了点红包,凑够了这265元,买了我第一个相机。 那时候还是胶卷,每卷还要接近40元的拍摄成本,所以我需要尽量节约生活费,发其他所有娱乐开支都剪掉,这样就可以拍照了。 我很感谢父母养大我,一直养我大学毕业工作。 你的家庭条件好不好,与你父母给你生活成本以外的钱,没什么关系。 养活你,教育你,让你读书。 你既然已经读大学,那就已经18岁了,继续给你钱生活都是已经超过了抚养义务。 你爹妈生你下来,养你成人,已经不欠你什么了。 那有什么不平衡,只有巨婴心理。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 云起 点击下载 14 个回答,查看全部。 高中想买个小型相机,不追求那些专业的相机300左右的就好? 向父母请求预支2000生活费买相机被拒绝怎么办?

  • 北京周边自驾游有哪些避暑好去处?

    知乎每日精选 · Thu, 21 Jul 2022 11:14:08 +0800

    20℃过夏天,探访距离北京最近的火山 今年夏天的北京,时而阴时而雨,再加上伏天,每天就像一个蒸屉一样,就算是热,也不通透,黏黏腻腻。雨过天晴,北京有了久违的蓝天白云。想着择日不如撞日,决定下班后追一场晚霞,来一程自驾,看了下地图,算算时间,将目的地选在了北京近500公里外的乌兰哈达火山群,这里我已经种草了4年。 晚上不到7点出发,正是北京的晚高峰,美丽的晚霞分散了堵车带给我的烦躁。驶上G6京藏高速,便开始向西一路驰骋,到张北附近已是夜幕初垂。考虑到已经开了将近5小时的车,而且已经是深夜,高速上大车很多,对向车道的车基本都是打远光灯很影响驾驶,开到乌兰察布时就在集宁住下了,补充一下体力。第二天继续赶路,又开了大约1.5小时,终于到达火山群。 乌兰哈达火山群 察右后旗乌兰哈达火山群位于内蒙古自治区乌兰察布市察右后旗乌兰哈达苏木与白音察干镇之间,分布面积约260平方公里,是蒙古高原南缘现今发现的全新世有喷发的火山地区。火山群总体呈北东和北西向串珠状散布,30多座大小不一的火山均匀散落在在内蒙古大草原上,大多是1亿多年前火山爆发形成的死火山。这个火山群,之前一直默默无闻,直到2012年被国内外火山学界知晓,2015年刊登在《中国国家地理》后,瞬间名声大噪,凭借‘世界上最年轻的火山群’得到了世界的关注和认可,探访‘天然火山博物馆’,更成为了京津冀自驾圈的热门。 我这次去的是距离北京最近的乌兰哈达的8座火山,它们最近的一次喷发距今大约6000年以前。1-2号火山目前已经风化消失了,所以在地图上没有没有标注。3-8号火山形成北东和北西两个走向的火山链,中间由G208国道隔开,北西是4-8号火山,北东是3号火山。 乌兰哈达火山群中属3座中心式喷发的炼丹炉火山最为知名(3号火山、5号火山、6号火山),顾名思义就是从火山中间喷发的。火山大部分锥体主要由玄武质熔结集块岩及碎成熔岩组成,属斯通博利式火山。虽已遭受一定剥蚀,但多数火口形态仍清晰可辨,被称为‘太上老君的炼丹炉’。这里也成为研究现代地壳活动性和火山资源、环境及灾害的天然“窗口”,具有极高的科学研究、考察、地学教育价值。这里的火山一直被认为是死火山,近几年在地质学家,实地考察后断论:这是年轻的活火山。 火山打卡指南 游客来到乌兰哈达火山群,最常去的就是3-6号火山。3号火山(北炼丹炉)西南侧已建好栈道通往山顶火山圈俯瞰、眺望;东南侧破坏比较严重,像挖煤场。山下有个红色的电话亭,很多人围着拍照。 4号火山早年由外籍华人投资,修建成乌兰哈达火山地质公园,但未形成规模,外加火山被挖剩三分之一,黑乎乎一片,没有很美。 5号火山(中炼丹炉)是保存最完整、最原生态、最高、最大的一座。因火山喷发后期压力减弱,火山圈中心的喷发口形成凸起的小火山锥。远看像一座大草坡,人也是可以爬上去的,就是没有正规的栈道,坡度略陡。 六号火山(南炼丹炉)是乌兰哈达火山群遭破坏最严重的一座,火山石因质量较轻、保温性能好、富含多种矿物质,早年被挖去做房顶保温材料、饮用水过滤材料等等。如今火山四周已被挖空形成峭壁,加之火山石容易断裂,无法攀登。因商业利益的趋势,会让人类肆无忌惮的破坏自然环境,看着心里挺不是滋味的。但因为‘后天人为因素’,这里现在成了网红拍照地,山下有很多人穿着‘太空服’假装在外星可靠,让人不禁惊叹‘航天人的太空探索梦想在乌兰哈达得以提前实现’。 逃离城市 换换心情 乌兰察布与北京有400多公里的距离,但这里不论从海拔、气温、风景、心情,都是不一样的。当眼前的景象从高楼林立,人群如麻中跳脱出来,换成风吹草低见牛羊,整个人状态可以明显感觉到是舒展、开阔的。坐在火山外的长椅上,看着一望无际的草原,好似被‘压低’的天空和飘动的大块云朵,深呼吸是草木的味道... 城市里的‘残卷风云’,在几百公里外的这里却是‘云淡风轻’。 与北京近1500米的海拔高度差、远离海洋等原因,让乌兰哈达天蓝云低,干燥凉爽,即便是盛夏时节,站在火山锥顶,那呼啦啦的大风可以把人吹跑;落日余晖中,迎着朔风,短衫短裤,可以冷得人直打哆嗦;更别提夜里了,那已经不能用凉爽来形容了,而是寒冷!7月底8月初的乌兰察布之夜,比起空调制冷,更需要的是一床棉被保温。 入夜,穿上保暖的衣服,开车去3号火山,把车停好,当眼睛适应了夜色,抬头望向天空,是夏日繁星与银河璀璨,漫天静谧,引人无限遐想。不远处的停车场里有几辆过夜的房车,应该是几家人来此过暑假,不时的传出欢声笑语。 日夜兼程,人间旅人 TIPS: 地址:内蒙古自治区乌兰察布市察哈尔右翼后旗 门票:免费 交通:自驾距北京500多公里,北京自驾过去5-6小时 乌兰哈达火山地质公园周边吃住不是很方便,年轻人的话可以选择住蒙古包或者露营;带老人孩子的建议先到乌兰察布住宿稍作休憩,第二天奔火山;或者住在察右后旗。 建议春夏秋前往,冬季寒冷又有雪,车辆及着装要做好功课 关于我 以「一人一车一行李箱」的方式,去过48个国家400+城市的红唇姑娘 公众号 SkaeyMin 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 游旻Skaey 点击下载 4 个回答,查看全部。 北京周边有什么避暑好去处? 五一计划北京周边自驾游,有什么好去处分享?

  • 如何评价奥迪R8?

    知乎每日精选 · Wed, 20 Jul 2022 18:19:04 +0800

    ------------------------------ 车还是要拿在自己手里开一段时间。虽然之前我也开过很多超跑,但这次是第一次有机会关了ESP好好在赛道上push一下极限,这台车在超跑里对我的意义有点像跑车里当年的AMG GT R。同时R8这台车也有很多车迷感兴趣,并且它是一台很特别的车,所以我觉得有必要深究一下。 省流重点提示 确实慢。以2022年的标准,只能达到跑车圈速。 2. 极限之上确实拧巴。有保时捷感觉,但没有保时捷优点。 3. 如何评价奥迪R8?还真不是简单的“GT取向”,是一个特别的设定。 4. R8还是超跑吗?什么是R8的正确购买姿势? ------------------------------- 1. R8圈速最终多少?这个圈速真的慢吗? R8的圈速是1分14秒1,这也是为什么我当天发微博说R8慢的(部分)原因。圈速排行详见下图。当然,因为温度高达37度并且是自吸,这圈速可以理解为这台车的下限。 按照经验,如果我们取北京全年平均温度(白天19度)的情况,R8的圈速应该在1分12秒到1分12秒中。如果为了出最好成绩,所有条件都刻意凑到一起,极限也许可以做到1分11秒出头。 这个圈速推测是完全合理的,因为可以和其他赛道的情况相互印证。 限于篇幅这里不展开分析了,但我研究了下,在金港、浙赛还有霍根海姆GP,相同环境下R8 V10 Performance的圈速应该都是轻微慢于AMG GT63 S(轮胎21寸CUP2),大约0.5秒。 那这个圈速是快是慢呢?按照2022年的标准,毫无疑问是很慢的。 R8的对标车型是入门超跑,包括法拉利Roma、迈凯伦GT、玛莎MC20、马丁DB11 V8、911 Turbo S等。虽然这些车虽然我们一台都没刷过圈,但考虑230万的价位,能参考的还有跑车的硬核赛道版比如AMG GT R Pro和GT3RS。 老金港我们测过AMG GT R Pro,圈速1分09秒7,轮胎CUP2。GT3RS没测过,但网上有很多CUP2 R的圈速,基本都在1分08秒中尾,如果换成有参考价值的CUP2半热熔胎,大概率也是1分09秒尾。 1分10秒上下的圈速,这也是最开始我对R8的期待。虽然R8原厂也有CUP2可以选装,但做圈速对比用目前的街胎是更合理的,因为后驱用半热熔带来的优势基本等于街胎加上四驱。(注1) 就算考虑那些入门超跑在圈速上不一定那么极致,我们对标低一点的AMG GT R和911 GT3。后者我们跑过1分10秒8,并且测试温度为32度。 所以这个价位的下限至少也应该在夏天跑到1分11秒内,而R8距离这个门槛还有2秒多的差距。要知道在金港这样一个小赛道,一圈差1秒就足够差出一个级别了。 当然,这个时候会有人说,圈速不重要,感受好就行了!但事实真是这样吗? 2. 刷圈真的不重要吗? 确实,圈速不能决定以一切,但对圈速的分析可以让我们更清楚地了解一台车的特性。 刷圈的世界里有两种慢。一种是你开着很流畅,但圈速就是慢。还有一种是你开着就没信心感觉很混乱,知道肯定快不了。 R8属于后者。 除了温度的影响,这次刷圈中我个人驾驶操作的部分其实还有约0.3-0.5秒的余量,但为什么我不再刷了呢? 因为没意义。整个车在极限上都很拧巴,让人没有信心去踩极限。 刷圈当天我发微博说感觉R8就是Quattro四驱+V10自吸版的911 GT3,这话是一点毛病没有的。 因为重心同样靠后,中置的R8在入弯和出弯的“瞬态表现”和后置的911如出一辙,即带刹车入弯的turn in车头响应极好,但一到了出弯给油重心后移,又会出现非常明显的转向不足。 并且和911 GT3一样,R8方向盘转向角度输入需求偏大或者说转向比大(这是个设定问题),我甚至怀疑是不是保时捷的人帮着R8做的标定。 但除了这两点相似的感觉,其他保时捷做得好的地方R8都做的不好。 首先中置和后置的车天生刹车就有优势(不解释了当做事实吧),保时捷可以说发挥得淋漓尽致。这点R8不光没有优势,反而成了最大的劣势。 虽然R8是街胎(PS4S AO)动力也比较强,但考虑中置构架的优势,两个直道100米出头刹肯定能站得住,但这台车明显刹车距离偏长。 我开始以为是ABS标定问题,但后来我发现刹车的时候能清楚地听见轮胎在尖叫,明显是抓地力到极限了。可车速就是降低得很慢,感觉从全力踩下刹车到入弯仿佛过去了一个世纪的时间。 【视频1:后直道刹车站不住】 后直道刹车站不住 这是这台车我最感到迷惑的地方。 其次是循迹刹车的入弯表现。 前面说带刹车入弯的车头响应很好,但这有一个前提,是需要刹车力度“恰到好处”,而这不是每次都能稳定地做到的,需要碰。 原因是你在直道末端逐渐抬起刹车时,“感觉”实际刹车力并没有对应地降低,而是还保持在之前的力度。这样前胎始终处在接近抱死的状态完全,无法产生侧向力。结果就是打方向车头根本不动,前胎像粘在了直行的方向上一样,完全无法入弯。 然后等你把速度降下来“可以入弯”的时候,车速通常已经“过低”了(低于这个弯道的极限,所以圈速会慢),并且此时车头会猛地一下转过多,甚至有的时候还要救车。。。(可能原因见注2) 【视频2,循迹刹车时under无法入弯,总要把速度降得过低,但此时又容易来个over】 循迹刹车时under无法入弯接overs 第三点就是这个车后轴的稳定性。 很多人看到R8和GT3这种跑车,就会下意识觉得这些车“特别稳”。这种感觉来自视觉上车外观的“低重心”。但事实上,这些中置和后置的跑车,天生在极限上是不稳的。 你没看错,“传统”的中置和后置跑车,后轴的稳定性其实一直是个“问题”,只不过现代超跑解决了这个问题。 R8这在方面像一个“极其传统的中置/后置跑车”,瞬间让我回想起了在模拟器里开老911的感觉。在一些中高速(100km/h以上)弯道打了方向前轴入弯之后,总是要想着“防范”后面的屁股侧滑出去搞个突然袭击。 总之就是让你没信心去找弯道的极限。 【视频3,带重心进入高速弯,后轴稳定性问题。虽然视频是极限夸张情况因为弯心有水,但不影响意思】 稳定性 关于这点给大家做个比喻,这些重心靠后的车其实很像霸王龙。前胎很窄,对应霸王龙的小爪子。而下盘让人“感觉”很稳,因为腿粗看起来很敦实,对应车的重心靠后且后胎很宽。 但这只是“看起来”。 实际上开这些车感觉像在驾驭一只在冰面上奔跑的霸王龙,总需要防着一拐弯屁股就甩出去,而且因为重心靠后一旦甩出去很不好救。只不过新车通过工程上细节的改进解决了这个问题,等于给在冰面上奔跑的霸王龙穿上了钉鞋,所以更稳了。 说到这儿可能有人迷糊了,你刚说无法入弯又说一入弯就over这不是自相矛盾。其实不矛盾,你可以简单粗暴理解为低速弯循迹刹车不好做入弯容易under(当然,偶尔做好了入弯很好),而中高速弯入弯容易over要救车。 稳定性还有个问题,就是刹车的时候后轴会晃。这点对应霸王龙只用前爪蹭地面刹车,但后面的屁股乱晃。 最后第四点,Quattro和V10的优势都没有发挥。 动力是有620匹马力,但车也重,结果就是R8和500匹的GT3马力质量比基本一样。这点从两者直道尾速接近也可以看出。(两者齿比相似(偏稀),R8在温度高一点的环境下尾速慢一点) 然后四驱在出弯时的抓地力优势也没被利用。因为这车齿比很稀,二挡断油车速接近120km/h,所以即使二挡出弯踩全油实际上也没什么动力,更别说够到抓地力极限。结果就是Quattro只是凭空增加了重量。 所以做个总结,因为重心靠后,R8在赛道极限过弯有和保时捷相似的感受,但保时捷做得好的地方它都没有做到,而自己的长处也没能发挥出来,所以圈速比GT3慢这么多也是合理的。 3. 所有的R8都是这样吗?如何评价奥迪R8? 我不确定,但奥迪这种大厂的一致性大概率还是没问题的。 这台试驾车虽然已经超过13000km,但状态良好。轮胎有损耗,但属于正常磨损没有乱豁,8成新是有的。而且这种四驱的车型,轮胎损耗对圈速的影响远比后驱小。包括我的胎压设定也没有问题,所以我认为不是车况的原因。 在写这篇之前,我看了外网几乎所有R8的赛道驾驶车载,以及Sportauto在15年Supertest的原文,然后我觉得大概率这车就是这样了。因为那些车载和我的驾驶感受基本一致,然后我上面说的几个点Supertest也都提到了。 【视频4,改款前R8 V10 Plus法国媒体赛道测试】 改款前R8 V10 Plus 【视频5,改款后后驱版R8法国媒体赛道测试】 改款后R8 RWD 比如在这些车载里,我能通过入弯时驾驶员对方向盘的操作反推出他对车辆的信心。那些视频里R8(相比其他车比如AMG GT R或者991.2 GT3)就是让人战战兢兢如履薄冰,车辆under又over,给人极限很薄的感觉。 一个人这样操作也许是技术不行,但所有人都呈现这种驾驶风格,那一定是车辆特性所致。 然后Supertest原文也提到了比如本身的动态特性出弯有power understeer,还有晚刹车会under无法入弯。 最逗的是Supertest表示转向角度过大的问题已经比上代车这方面好多了,还说power understeer也被控制在了“可以接受”的范畴。 这让我瞬间懂了,第一代的R8得有多烂。然后我去看了一下13年Supertest老R8 V10的纽北刷圈视频,果不其然power understeer和刹车的时候不稳到死。其实这个车载我上学的时候就看过,但是现在才真的懂。 【视频6,2013年第一代R8 V10 Supertest纽北刷圈,看前面hatzenbach部分足够了。搞笑的是后面有几个出弯方向都快打到180度了。。。】 13年第一代R8 Supertest纽北刷圈 这也让我想起了马丁DB11 V12的故事。 我开的第一台GT超跑就是DB11 V12,当时觉得噪音太大车太糙。那时候去看英媒观点说“比上代refined(精良)多了”,“是巨大的进步”,我一下懂了上代车是啥德行,也才知道自己看了快10年底英媒有多忽悠。因为我一直靠看他们的内容了解跑车和超跑。 然后文章写到这里,我突然回想起了一个细节。我拿到车第一次过减速带,就发现这台R8悬架是“前硬后软”的设定。 基本上我开过所有的前置后驱跑车,为了在极限达到前后轴平衡,都用的是“前软后硬”的设定。R8这种中置的超跑“照理来说”后轴应该更硬,现在这种设定会让车在稳态上开起来更“转向不足”。 这又让我瞬间想起来一个相关的事。 我刷完圈散热的时候,因为注意力不像刷圈都集中在驾驶上无法顾及别的事情,我发现这个车过弯极限很低,感觉过弯速度还没怎么快呢前轮就响胎了。(注3) 当时下来我还问奥迪车辆管理的agency,说咱这车有没有撞过?感觉极限怎么这么低啊。人家说没有,我们可没撞过。 这一下就和上面提到的赛道极限动态联系上了。因为这种设定有一个特点,就是车辆从0侧向加速度到接近极限时会转向不足(所以过弯速度不快前轴就响胎了),但到了极限之上稳定性反而会降低,后轴容易侧滑出去。(注4) 所以这车极限之上的动态表现一部分是重心偏后的“传统超跑”导致,另一部分应该也是悬架设定所致。 可以说R8这种设定照顾的是极限之下的稳定性。虽然极限之下本身就是稳定的,但R8这样就是“稳上加稳”,这也是为什么多数人开这个车会感觉“过于稳定”的原因。而到了极限之上,这种悬架设定加上偏后的重心,赋予了R8“特别传统(特别不稳)”的驾驶感受。 所以说R8不是为赛道设计的还真没错,但这个“不为赛道”不是所谓的“弹簧软”(注6),或者“车重”这种大家传统概念上“更GT”的做法,而是从底盘动态的基础设定上就是完全(甚至过于)照顾代步和新手需求的。 我不知道Huracan是不是也是如此,但如果第二代R8确实是用目前小牛的车架来做的,并且也是“前硬后软”,那很有可能两者极限之上的感受是类似的。(前两天看Huracan Tecnica欧洲媒体跑赛道是这样,现在回想起大牛SVJ刷纽北的车载也是这种感觉) 我还发现一个细节,就是R8的前轮(外径)比后轮“小”,而且小得比较多。前轮是245/30 R20,后轮是305/30 R20,而中置的超跑里只有Huracan也是这样。其他的法拉利迈凯伦玛莎什么的都不是,那些车前轮245/35 R20,后轮305/30 R20,差别没这两台车这么大。所以我很怀疑兰博的这个底子是个什么比较“古老”的构架。(注5) 当然这个“古老构架”只是我的“揣测”,到底古不古老,到底是不是目前R8动态表现的根本原因,可能中文世界里永远不会有答案了。我能做到的是,试一下Huracan还有其他中置后驱的超跑,看看关了ESP超过极限过弯到底是什么情况。 我的猜测,Huracan和R8类似,而其他车会有中置特性但不会像R8这么夸张,即为“更现代”的超跑。 4. 在我心目中R8到底算不算超跑?什么是R8的正确购买姿势? R8毫无疑问是一台超跑,可问题出在了时间。 第一代R8的性能是可以和同时代法拉利458 Italia比肩的,包括当时和盖拉多区别也不是那么大。但从14年开始超跑都开始增压,早就难以望对手项背。 虽然Huracan有同样的问题,但1.4吨毕竟轻(自吸必须轻),还可以跟上230万入门超跑的性能,然后凭借酷炫的品牌和设计卖个F8和720s的价格。 反观奥迪,这次我的感受是即使和入门的超跑比,R8 V10也力不从心。甚至我开了好几天,一直都以为这是540匹的基础版,直到后来确认了确实是620匹马力的Performance版。这更说明,R8真的老了。 这让我想起了我本科入学听到第一个讲座。 那是一个在法拉利工作了一辈子的工程师来给我们这些汽车系新生讲“汽车工业”,其中有一个结论我印象很深:如果你回看汽车行业两三年的技术变化,其实非常有限,但是回看十年前,则变化天很大且不可逆。汽车行业就是以这样一种缓慢但持续的方式在演化。 所以,前有尼桑GT-R打不过保时捷,后有R8也被时代落下,只能说车辆工程是一个对技术进行持久更新要求很高的行业。 说了这么多,我不是想说R8不好,而是我有机会开出这个车的极限,想记录下来分享给更多人。我的想法其实和之前微博下的一个粉丝留言说的一样,想买一个代步。 因为对于日常代步,R8完全就是另一台车,开着真的非常稳定(注7),就是你“想象中”的样子。除了转向比有点偏大,没什么不自然的。 然后动动手指关了ESP,你又能体验到像996/997世代老保时捷那种特别刺激开着特别容易死人的感觉。集两种分裂的性格于一身,将传统和现代无缝衔接,也只有奥迪R8能做到了。仿佛你开的不是R8,开的是汽车工业百年发展的结晶。(注8) 出戏的是,你环顾一下座舱又很舒适现代,空间堪比超跑里的SUV(除了左脚休息踏板奇怪),而且悬架不管是软硬还是车身控制也都是大厂风范品质很在线乘坐很舒适。(注9) 唯一的不足是驾驶模式很奥迪不太行(但我可以接受一直M档),而且变速箱代步标定容易让人唏嘘是不是奥迪的人都去搞电动车了,堵车创动且降档慢,坐着容易晕。让pkpk1帮我看了下,19年之后变速箱标定就没有改过了,应该就是中期改款的时候最后标了一版。 说到这儿,对R8感兴趣的朋友买车我建议一定要买中期改款前,因为声浪和齿比。声浪很好理解,改款前还是国5。 齿比是我看外网R8车载发现的。19年左右改款前的车齿比都是偏密的(或者说标准更合适),二三档断油车速分别是接近100km/h和150km/h。而改款后的车(这次我试驾的也是),断油车速是接近120km/h和160km/h。 齿比大概率是个搞笑的事儿,很可能为了满足国6/欧6,然后发现油耗过不了,就简单粗暴把终传比一改完事儿(确实可能就差这么一点儿),而绝大多数情况下中期改款是不会改齿比这种东西的。 这个的影响是很明显的。之前咱们讲过,自吸发动机的最大功率本身只是一个点。比如这台5.2 V10,620马力只有到8500rpm才有,7000rpm也只有90%马力,那就是560匹。。。 【视频7,改款前R8齿比及发动机功率仪表显示,7000rpm只有90%】 改款前R8齿比 【视频8,改款后R8齿比仪表显示】 改款后R8齿比 改款后类似保时捷偏长的齿比完全限制了R8的性能,如果是改款前的车,直线加速和出弯(利用抓地力)都能更好。更重要的是很多人不在极限开不懂,齿比会改变车辆的性格,毫无疑问改款的前密齿比才是R8的完全体。 这也是我很难接受改款后R8的很大原因,因为我上学时候的Dreamcar是法拉利458 Italia,而改款前的R8动力(四驱车重但是马力更大)还有齿比都和458接近。 要知道车况好的458几乎没有,价格也高。但第二代R8车新(16-19年),车况好价格也给力。虽然跟不上现在的超跑,但搞个有2010年世界顶级超跑性能水准的新车圆下上学时候的梦也行啊! 改款后的真的就算了。。。 感觉目前想要买的车有些多,GTAm、AMG GT C敞篷、G82、R8 V10 Plus。。。还要努力。。。 说了这么多,相信你已经比世界上99%的车迷了解R8了!我也觉得关于R8我想讲的基本都说清楚了。如果各位看懂的话,希望不吝转发点赞,也不枉我耗费了这么多脑细胞。 我是很欣慰,在现在这个电车横行的时代,抓住最后一个机会基本上搞懂了R8是怎么样的。如果你也像我一样喜欢过奥迪R8,那这篇文章就当做是给我们的青春纪念吧! ------------------------------- 注释列表 注1:在我看来原厂刷圈四驱+CUP2已经算作弊了,所以那些用CUP2 R刷992 Turbo S的我就呵呵了。 注2:fcy反馈,可能是低速弯入弯四驱产生刹车扭矩转向的问题。fsf反馈,老997四驱也是如此。 注3:第一个出弯under power是瞬态under,第二个是转向比设定。这个是稳态under。 注4:之前开过的车里只有一个CT6是这样设定,又是一个烂尾故事。。。 注5:“前硬后软”和“古老构架”导致车开起来是这样,这只是我的猜测。我擅长的是动力总成和极限驾驶动态,但关于底盘设计即什么原因导致了这个动态我不专业,只是和身边工程师朋友分析完觉得大概率是这样。 注6:弹簧软硬和赛道极限其实没直接关系。 注7:可能很多人想象不到也无法接受,这台车的Quattro其实是个电控多片离合器。包括RS3也是非常好,虽然是电控多片离合器但动力分配就像机械quattro。 注8:其实这些天讨论这个车,我们一度觉得更早的六七十年代的那些中置跑车是不是开起来也是这个感受?因为真的非常符合逻辑,就是工程折中,用一个人为“偏under保稳定”的设定,让这些大马力的车先“可以开”。这说明每一个你看起来稀松平常的事情,可能都经过了100年发展。不过也有点搞笑,刚玩儿明白就被中国人电动车超越了。。。 注9:相比之下一些“小厂”(比如AM)虽然底盘不硬但车身控制放了,坐着会头晕。。。 ------------------------------- 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 苏黎世贝勒爷 点击下载 39 个回答,查看全部。 奥迪r8在跑车里算什么水平? 红牛 F1 表示本田引擎已超越雷诺,其差距有多大?

  • 要在《原神》中造访所有七天神像,最短的路线是什么样的?

    知乎每日精选 · Wed, 20 Jul 2022 13:47:51 +0800

    这个问题可以归结成旅行商问题(TSP),即「给定一系列城市和每对城市之间的距离,求解访问每一座城市一次并回到起始城市的最短回路」[1]。这是个NP-hard的问题,但对于原神的17个神像,要精确求解仍然非常简单。很多软件里都有现成的算法可以用,关键是数据怎么提取。 我从这个网站截了个图。本想看看源代码里有没有神像位置的数据,无奈代码太过繁杂,没有找到数据。所以我直接用图像匹配的方法搞到了数据。 思路很简单:用神像的图标作为模板,算每个点的相似度。然后找一个阈值,得到黑白的图像: 提取所有白色像素的位置,再用K-Means做个聚类,算一下均值,就得到了每个神像的坐标了: 找TSP最短路径倒是非常简单,Mathematica内置了FindShortestTour函数,直接就把结果给出来了: 当然,这里还只是个近似。实际情况中,要考虑地形(水、墙、山地等),问题会复杂很多。但大体的路线应该差不了多少。 考虑稻妻不能直接走过去,分开算的话是这样的: 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 知乎用户(登录查看详情) 点击下载 5 个回答,查看全部。 《原神》中神里绫人圣遗物怎么选择? 原神深境螺旋什么时候才会开放呢?

  • 如何花十分钟快速分析一家上市公司?

    知乎每日精选 · Wed, 20 Jul 2022 12:14:43 +0800

    根据问题,给出十分钟版本,后附完整的财务报表解读方法。 可以想象,你接到临时通知,十分钟后有一个会,你要发言谈某家上市公司;或者临时拜访一家上市公司,只有十分钟时间熟悉资料;或者干脆你想肝一把,计划梳理各行业上市公司情况,好家伙,如果每家看俩小时,A股4800多家上市公司,不吃不喝就要花掉近万小时,或者说不吃不喝417天;而10分钟的话,是48000分钟,合800小时,33天多一点,加上吃喝休息,花两个月左右时间,这件事情就不那么难做,可以对A股上市公司有一个大致概念,作为深度分析和筛选上市公司的基础。 既然要求时间少,我们就看重点,先了解公司性质、股权结构和治理状况,了解公司的治理风格,可以大致推测上市公司可能的管理水平,这样大致花5分钟,然后了解公司业绩、市场表现和风险事项,看公司是否值得继续深入分析和做投资筛选,再花5分钟。当然这是我的习惯,你也可以调整顺序,我们整个分析的目的是发现风险。 当然,我们肯定要借助工具,包括同花顺、东财软件等,查公司情况和业绩等,才可能做到短时间内集中获取公司信息。但因为内容还是非常多,所以我们要去粗取精,有的放矢看资料,就以酒类行业龙头贵州茅台为例。 1、企业性质 国有控股、民营控股,还是外资控股,决定公司治理、决策等风格,影响股权激励、资本运作的灵活性,体现经理层经营动力的差异;还影响了公司资源优势、银行信用贷款能力等。 我们看到贵州茅台实控人是贵州省国资委,属于省级国有控股上市公司,所以我们就知道公司要同时遵守国资和证券双重监管要求,国有上市公司特点是内控相对规范,但决策机制灵活性不及民营上市公司,且股权激励也有较多制约性规定,员工和管理层积极性相对不高。 但并不是说国控上市公司就比民营上市公司经营差,很多民营上市公司经营不规范,部分对股东分红铁公鸡,对员工薪酬福利和激励也铁公鸡,公司未来发展潜力有限,资金吸引力也较弱。 2、商业模式和客户群 商业模式种类各异,伴随信息互联技术的发展,新生态、升级版的商业模式层出不穷,三谷宏治在《商业模式全史》中梳理总结了盈利模式、销售方法、生产方式、结算·资金流转方式等。 客户群分为toB、toC还是toG,或是混合。比如贵州茅台是酒类食品行业,是以经销商渠道为主,自营渠道为辅的经营模式,所以他的客户有经销商的B端,也有消费者的C端。 但分析自营和经销商占比要花点数据分析的时间,所以大家可以在深入分析部分做,看历年的变化趋势,分析公司的销售渠道变化情况,这里就知道目前茅台还是经销商渠道占80%左右。 3、股权结构 是否有实际控制人和控股股东,以及前十大股东中明星机构投资者多不多,决定公司控制权稳定性和吸引力;如公司无实控人和控股股东,一般会是经理人控制,股权相对分散,如万科,存在外部投资人争夺公司控制权的威胁。 当然A股上市公司股权集中为主,分散股权的公司为少数,截至2022年半年度末不足5%,但股权相对集中的上市公司中,也有大量持股不足20%的控股股东,也存在控制权被挑战的风险。 而如果股权过度集中,如高达70%以上,公司股份流动量偏低,对市场资金吸引力不足,公司市值表现可能受影响。 比如茅台,截至2022年一季度末,国资控股股东“中国贵州茅台酒厂(集团)有限责任公司”占股权比例54%,贵州茅台酒厂(集团)技术开发有限公司2.21%,再加上贵州国资运营公司4.54%,贵州国资占60.75%,如果算是中央汇金、中证金融公司等央级国资投资平台的持股,比例更高,国资股权非常集中,所以一定是浓厚的国资股权和治理管理风格。后面通过董事和经理任命也可以进一步印证。 4、管理层情况 无论是股权集中还是分散的上市公司,高管和各级管理核心团队,股权激励等措施非常重要。所以要看公司上市以来股权激励、员工持股计划的的实施频次,还是有项目跟投安排等。如茅台和管理层没有持股,这是国有控股的特点,现在国资委在加大推动国有上市公司的股权激励。 看到这里,大概花去了5分钟的样子,而你心里大概有这家公司治理结构的基本概念,就是如果控股股东一股独大,实控人兼董事长、总经理,以及家族参与经营管理,那如果企业家能力非常强,那要关注对控制权的监督情况,包括是否有大比例股权质押、和上市公司关联交易和担保等可能损害上市公司利益的风险事项;如果控股股东一股独大,但不参与经营,职业经理人负责经营,那就要激励和监督经理层;如果没有控股股东和实控人,要看经理人是否在公司持股,这家公司要担心控制权争夺和经理人一手遮天的问题。 关于控制权,你还要看下董事会的构成情况,毕竟控制董事会也是公司控制权的重要形式,比如茅台的董事会构成,9位董事中5位独立董事,外部董事过半,在A股上市公司中要求是1/3以上就可以,当然国资管理的要求,还设立职工董事,但作为内部董事,和执行董事利益是一致的。 然后看管理层非常精简,且财总兼董秘,前者是风险岗位,后者是市场关系岗位,虽然现在很多公司这样配置,节约成本,但职责冲突,财总职责偏保守,董秘要求更开放。当然茅台本身是市场投资者求着他,其他上市公司这样是有一些问题的。 5、企业规模:资产、营收、利润、市值 看公司资产、净资产规模、营收和净利润,可看下近5年数据变化,同花顺拉一下。 比如看公司的资产负债率和偿债比率,茅台经营杠杆率近十年都在35%以下,本身现金流很充裕,而速动比率也能在2左右,最高超过3,不用担心公司资金链断裂。而有些公司速动比率在1以下,很可能发生资金危机,如恒大集团等地产企业,速动比率常年低于1,相对资金风险大。 比如营收里面茅台酒占绝对的比重,且境内为主,近五年数据非常稳定;同时,境内为主也说明茅台品牌国际化还有很大空间,也是国内白酒企业的共同发展课题。 再看公司市值水平和市盈率,当然需要提前对A股市场市值区间有个总体了解,判断市场对公司的看法。当然茅台作为万亿市值,傲视A股市场。下图中最右侧的顶点是茅台的市值2.45万亿元(截至2022年7月15日收盘),比第二名工商银行整整多出1万亿元。 另外,市值集中较高的区间非常少,在下图右侧,50亿元市值以下的有2278家上市公司,占比47%,而100亿元市值以下的有3365家上市公司,占比70%。 对于公司市场表现,还可有个取巧的办法,就是看覆盖公司的券商研报情况,有的上市公司多少年才一份研报,没券商机构写公司,市场关注度非常低,市值自然也高不了。 6、公司分红回报和融资水平 看公司的历年现金分红比例,现在也可以看下整个市场的TSR(投资者回报)水平,即TSR=(期末股价-期初股价+股息)÷期初股价,反映公司对股东投资的吸引力。 如茅台现金分红水平行业对比如下,在行业里分的是真多,而2021年度现金分红率为51.9%,比例很高,但要注意因为国有控股股东持股比例高,现金分红过半也是分给了控股股东。而计算出2021年度公司TSR为3.69%,在上图显示的A股市TSR分布中,其实处于中位,并不高。 另外贵茅上市后无股权类再融资,没有继续向市场吸金,对比不断的分红,还是比较良心的。一些上市公司,分红不分或比例不达标(一般要求达到年度归母净利润的30%以上),融资风生水起,产业做的好还行,股价可以体现,如果融资后产业建设和运营也不行,股价低迷,公司的长期投资价值真就不高。 7、舆情、处罚和风险事项 通过搜公告关键字和网络平台,看近期热点和是否有风险事项。比如搜索贵州茅台,从新闻标题看茅台今年以来,推动i茅台app等线上渠道布局,目前服务上可能有些问题,而近期茅台的集团公司将旗下习酒独立剥离给贵州国资持有,解决同业竞争问题。 而贵茅经营数据的公布,可以看到最近的经营态势,以及公司的市场地位,当然举例看贵州茅台,本身知名度非常高,对于一般的上市公司,我们都是可以这样去查找,看新闻标题捕捉信息,对于特别感兴趣的内容,点进去大致浏览一下关键信息。 又比如看诉讼、立案等事项,显示茅台没有,这方面风险就暂时还不用担心。 看完这些,其实对于一家上市公司基本信息、治理风格、业绩和市场表现、风险事项就有了基本的认识,知道了这家公司是大规模、小规模,国有的还是民营的,治理保守还是现代经营风格,业绩有没有大的风险等。 所谓10分钟也是模糊的提法,精髓还是在尽量短的时间掌握公司核心信息,随着使用知识和工具越来越熟练,所花的时间也会越来越少,可以尽可能多覆盖一些公司的基本情况。 附:上市公司财报分析流程 有上面分析的基础,后续筛选感兴趣的上市公司,深入分析的话,还可以看公司的并购重组情况,对产业布局的规划,ESG表现和评价,董事会和管理层的人员安排,职业经理人的占比,在行业中的地位(对比同行业上市公司的相关信息和业绩指标)等,特别是对于上市公司定期财报的详细分析。 一、四张表解读 财报是了解上市公司年度财务状况和经营成果的综合性资料,需要有重点、历史延续性的阅读和研究,善于读年报及其中的财报对于正确判断一家上市公司财务健康状况和经营情况至关重要。 (一)报表关注点 对于四张财务报表,最重要的是“资产负债表、利润表和现金流量表”三张表,所有者权益变动表可以作为辅助阅读。关注三张表的重要立足点,就是看有无异常项目,同比大幅增长或下降,要找到原因,很多时候“事有反常必为妖”。 资产负债表反映企业报告期末的财务状况,一定要从“钱的来源”和“钱的去处”两个方向来看,表的右边为钱的来源,包括下半部来源于股东的钱,和上半部来源于债主的钱,左边则是钱的去处,是存在银行,还是用于生产成为存货和商品,还是支付了货款或对外投资了,都一一体现。 利润表也叫“损益表”,反映企业报告期的经营成果,是大家最喜欢看的,炒股的人盯着净利润不放,但其实这里是最容易造假的,即使没有造假也得能看出利润的质量究竟如何。这里要理解造假的根源是权责发生制,将没有收到的钱算作收入,没付出的钱记录为成本,或者收到的钱不算收入,付出去的钱不记录为成本,这些主要通过摊销和财务入账时点的选择进行调整,会计政策不同结果天壤之别。一个简化的小例子,小明每月生活开支1.5万元,工资收入3万元,于下月初领取,如果是收付实现制,则当月小明现金流出1.5万元,没有收入,亏损,而按照权责发生制,当月算工资收入3万元,减去开支1.5万元,还净挣1.5万元,在不考虑税费的前提下,当月盈亏情况相反,金额相差3万元。但要注意的是,无论采取哪种记账方式,当月没有体现的,后面月份还是会反映出来,所以利润造假的难度或说风险在于后面如何填这个窟窿。还有营业利润是一家公司的核心利润,是持续竞争力的体现,这里最好把投资收益和资产减值损失等减去后看,并特别关注历史数据、同行业数据情况。 现金流量表记录公司现金流入和流出,反映企业资金筹措和控制能力,其期初和期末现金及现金等价物余额是实际有账目的数据(包括在银行有记录),比较难造假,所以现金流量表是要特别关注的,期末现金及现金等价物余额与利润表中净利润的对比也是重点,如果利润比现金数据高很多,存在造假或至少收款能力不足,存在较大风险。这里有一个看现金流量表的技巧,即关注“经营活动现金流净额、投资活动现金流净额、筹资活动现金流净额”三者的正负情况,如下表: 上表中奶牛型是最佳的,经营现金流可以覆盖投资和融资需求,但需要可持续性,没有持续性就需要加大对外融资,成为蛮牛型,而蛮牛型经营现金流净额为正,正常在投资,然后筹资情况为正,说明信用良好,是一家还算良性经营的公司,但需要支付更多融资费用,要关注资金安全。往往容易误解的是类型1,称为妖精型,其实这个类型公司经营有收入,但投资在回收资金,没有继续扩大生产,同时还在借债,公司积累了很多钱,可能未来准备对内对外大举投入新的方向,也可能将收集的资金转移给利益方,不再用于生产经营,必须特别注意。另外,对一家公司按上述表格分析,不能只着眼于一年,而要长期跟踪才能判断。 (二)三张表之间的联系 这里先说一下,三张表不是割裂的,数据之间可相互关联印证。 1、利润表和资产负债表 利润表的净利润=资产负债表“期末盈余公积+期末未分配利润-期初盈余公积-期初未分配利润+期内实施的分红”,也就是说当年净利润最终增加了企业净资产中的留存收益,包括盈余公积和未分配利润。 资产=负债+所有制权益+收入-费用,由这个公式可以知道,如果上市公司想虚增利润,也就是要虚增资产,或虚减负债,由于负债虚减涉及债权人的配合,比较难,所以一般上市公司操纵利润都与资产有关。 2、现金流量表和利润表、资产负债表 企业的支出,如果是用于一年内计入利润表,作为当期费用,使用超过一年则计入资产负债表,作为资产。得出的有趣结论是:资产和费用都是支出,资产是长效支出,费用是短效支出。 而企业的进账,无论是借债、资产还是营业收入,都会被计入现金流量表,成为流入资金,再通过支出变成资产和费用。 所以,资产负债表的负债和权益,通过现金流量表,转化为资产负债表的资产或利润表的费用。 此外,现金流量表中,除了现金及现金等价物期初和期末余额,其余项目是根据利润表和资产负债表推导出来的,展示资产负债表货币资金科目里“现金及现金等价物”的变化过程,可以印证两张表,但通过现金流量表去证伪两张表是不靠谱的。 3、利润表和现金流量表、资产负债表 利润表上激励的每一笔收入,可产生现金或应收款,对应到现金流量表和资产负债表;而更进一步的联系是:营业收入(利润表)*增值税率≈销售商品、提供劳务收到的现金(现金流量表)+应收账款、应收票据增加额(资产负债表),也就是说利润表中是不含增值税的,转换到现金流量表中要加上增值税。(增值税率自2019年税改后,上限由17%下调为13%,不同行业适用13%、9%、6%等不同档) 二、识别财报操纵 这里还是看到会计恒等式“资产=负债+所有制权益+收入-费用”,操纵利润无非就是操纵收入和费用,并引起资产和负债的变化,而美化现金流量表则主要是调整经营活动现金流。 1、操纵收入 手法有虚构收入、借助一次性行为夸大收入和提前确认收入。虚构收入,就是做一些虚假交易、虚增成交金额,将非营利性交易确认为收入、显失公平的关联交易等。借助一次性行为夸大收入,比如把出售业务部门或资产所得转化为营业收入,或将亏损打包进一个公司或部门,然后出售掉以掩盖亏损等。提前确认收入,是对还未开始提供产品或服务的收入进行确认,在买家没有明确承认承担付款义务时确认收入,以及确认超过完工百分比对应的收入(因为工程建设或设备组装生产进度的主观操作空间大)。 2、操纵费用 核心就是虚减和虚增费用。虚减费用,就是将本期费用推迟、掩盖成本(比如存货贬值不计提减值,特别留意生鲜、科技类产品企业,存货贬值快,而酒类等不容易贬值)或亏损,达到提升当期利润的目的;而虚增费用俗称“洗大澡”,比如注销资产或存货、大额计提减值损失、将经常性费用归入一次性费用计提等,这种操作把当年度的费用提足,一次亏个够,为来年利润向好作铺垫。 举个例子,公司采购员去财务支取备用金用于采购付款,采购付款后收到对方发票,拿来交给公司财务,但是财务锁在抽屉里先不入账,或干脆采购自己把发票先捂着,这样财报里面这笔钱还是“应收账款-某某支取备用金”,还是资产。如果入账则转为采购成本了,就减少了当期利润。 3、操纵现金流 (1)增加经营活动现金流入 将投资或筹资活动的现金流入,转化为经营活动现金流入,比如收购一家公司,获得收购对象的经营性现金流入,特别是收购完成前,有意让收购对象付清应付款并让客户暂缓付款,形成应收账款。等收购完成后,买来的公司应收账款再收回,就能变成经营活动现金流入了。 (2)减少经营活动现金流出 将某些经营活动现金流出转化为投资或筹资活动现金流出,比如购买电影电视节目版权、租入网络带宽,就可能被操作归入投资活动现金支出。 (3)一次性行为美化经营活动现金流净额 比如通过银行保理业务打折出售应收款,给出高额折扣刺激客户提前付掉应收账款,或拖欠供货商货款、减少正常采购等,以增加当期经营活动现金流量净额。 4、其他操纵 手法其实还有很多,比如公司操纵利润表,当年大量计提坏账准备(公司自己认定是坏账),降低了本期利润,下期坏账收回了,利润大幅增长,这种也特别被一些公司用于实现两年亏损、一年盈利,以规避ST的目的,但其实一直在亏损,只是某一年或两年亏的大,分摊了盈利那一年的亏损金额。此外,还要特别留意公司突然改变会计政策的情形,可能是遇到经营的问题,或意图发挥财技搞事,比如计提减值准备的标准,突然紧了,可能就是想今年要少提减值,增加利润,突然松了,可能想“洗大澡”,一次亏个够。 还有比如公司想提高毛利率,加大生产,特别是制造企业生产上固定成本比较大的,生产产品越多(当期没有销售出去)形成越多存货,固定成本摊销至单位存货上的成本就降低了,从而提升毛利率,虚增当期利润。 再比如生物资产也是造假高发区,即资产负债表中的“生产性生物资产”,农林牧渔业,生物科技领域,牛养鸡、虾鱼贝等,指着鱼塘告诉会计师下面多少多少,也只能听;今年公告说疫情严重,库存鸡要提减值,明年说我们控制的好,疫情没有让我们的鸡死多少,堂而皇之的调节减值,操控利润。而农林牧渔业通常有税收减免,及时增加存货带来的税收增加也比其它行业少的多,造假成本低也是一个原因。科技行业也是如此,对技术的评估难,产品个性化程度高,由于发展更新快,可比标准难以获取,都为造假提供了空间。 上面谈到的这些手法通常需要供应商、合作伙伴、大股东同台作弊,风险较大,还有就是增加生产这个例子,会同时大量增加存货和税收,代价不小,有经验的也会识破。但由于利益驱使,总不缺胆大的敢铤而走险,风险再大也照样飞蛾扑火。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 岑斌 点击下载 34 个回答,查看全部。 龙辉金融有经验不?可以在这家配资么? 想背靠一家网红娱乐公司,众海世纪在业内口碑怎么样?有知道的么?

  • 【塔山之石】塔勒布比特币黑皮书

    知乎每日精选 · Wed, 20 Jul 2022 10:56:41 +0800

    之前说的塔勒布关于比特币的论述多少有点隔靴搔痒,因为推特也都只是只言片语,要理解他完整的意思不可避免的还是要回到他那个论文《Bitcoin, Currencies, and Fragility》。这文章很长,我时间精力有限,粗糙的翻译一下。因为里面涉及到不少专业内容,我会写点注释和导读。到一个阶段的最末尾,我才会说我自己的看法。 体例: 英语是论文原文,包含标题和段落分割 [1]是论文原文里的对其他论文的引用 (*)是笔者的附加说明和评述 这类右上角的标注表示论文里的注释 论文里引述其他论文的部分使用引用的格式 Bitcoin, Currencies, and Fragility 比特币,货币及其脆弱性 A technology should be judged in how it solves recognized problems, not by its technical appeal. 一种技术的价值应该取决于它解决特定问题的作用,而不是它的技术有多厉害。 INTRODUCTION/ABSTRACT 综述 This discussion applies quantitative finance methods and economic arguments to cryptocurrencies in general and bitcoin in particular —as there are about 10, 000 cryptocurrencies, we focus (unless otherwise specified) on the most discussed crypto of those that claim to hew to the original protocol [1] and the one with, by far, the largest market capitalization. 本文将把量化金融的办法和经济学方法应用于加密货币,特别是比特币——由于加密货币约有10000种,我们将重点(除非另有说明)关注最被广泛讨论的,创世的第一种加密货币[1],也是市值最大的一种加密货币。 In its current version, in spite of the hype, bitcoin failed to satisfy the notion of "currency without government" (it proved to not even be a currency at all), can be neither a short nor long term store of value (its expected value is no higher than 0), cannot operate as a reliable inflation hedge, and, worst of all, does not constitute, not even remotely, a safe haven for one’s investments, a shield against government tyranny, or a tail protection vehicle for catastrophic episodes. 就当下而言,尽管不断有人大肆鼓吹,但比特币也并未能实现「无需政府的货币」的构想(事实证明,比特币甚至算不上是一种货币),既不能作为短期或长期的价值储存(其价值甚至不比0高),也不能作为可靠的通胀对冲工具。最糟糕的是,长期来看比特币也没办法用来对抗货币当局的滥发,也不能为灾难性的尾部事件充当对冲保护的工具。 (*)尾部事件是指发生概率很小的,在分布函数尾部的事件,可粗略理解成小概率事件。 Furthermore, bitcoin promoters appear to conflate the success of a payment mechanism (as a decentralized mode of exchange), which so far has failed, with the speculative variations in the price of a zero-sum maximally fragile asset with massive negative externalities 另外,比特币的推广者们似乎想要融合投机属性和支付属性(一种去中心化的交易方式),尽管把比特币做为支付工具已经失败,依然试图调和比特币支付属性与零和博弈的投机属性。而这个用于零和投机游戏的脆弱资产,带来了巨大的负外部性。 (*)负外部性是经济学术语,可以粗略的理解为对社会有害 (*)该图是比特币价格波动率的一个统计,波动率通常是描述资产价格不稳定性的指标,用价格变化的方差来刻画。波动率大意味着作为支付工具是不可用的。 Going through monetary history, we show how a true numeraire must be one of minimum variance with respect to an arbitrary basket of goods and services, how gold and silver lost their inflation hedge status during the Hunt brothers squeeze in the late 1970s and what would be required from a true inflation hedged store of value. 纵观货币历史,我们展示了一个真正的基准货币,应该对任意一揽子商品和服务满足最小方差。以及黄金和白银如何在1970年代后期亨特兄弟的操纵案后失去了通胀对冲地位,然后讨论如何能真正对冲通胀,保持价值。 THE BLOCKCHAIN 区块链 First, let us consider what cryptocurrencies do by examining the notion of blockchain and its intellectual and mathematical appeal. 首先,我们来研究一下加密数字货币用什么办法来验证,区块链它背后的机制和数学方法。 (*)关于比特币原理的简介,网上有很多,这里说的实在是不够清晰,强烈推荐 3blue1brown 比特币原理简介;了解了比特币的原理后关于原理部分的描述可以扫一眼跳着看 The concept behind such a chain is quite intuitive to early practitioners of quantitative finance. Consider that before efficient software for Monte Carlo simulations became widely available, some of us were using methods to generate pseudorandom variables via some forms of chained nonlinear transformations, in the spirit of Von Neumann’s original idea [2]. 对于链背后的概念,对于早期量化金融的参与者们来说都是老熟人了。在蒙特卡洛模拟软件被普及之前,我们经常用链式非线性变换的方法来生成一个伪随机变量,这个也是冯诺依曼最初想法的精神[文献2]。 Indexing sequences by , with a seed at , a variable on the real line generates via nonlinear transformations , an output variable . This output variable can serve as a pseudorandom seed to generate another pseudorandom variable, . For all , knowledge of allows knowledge of all subsequent variables and replication of the entire sequence, thus probabilistically mimicking the arrow of time. It is also crucial that the same seed produces exactly the same pseudorandom variable, allowing verification of sequence, but disallowing easy reverse engineering. (*)如果你看着头晕,确保你知道哈希函数是什么的情况下可以跳过,如果还不知道,但能看点简单的代码,推荐参考 关于哈希算法 一个有序的序列 上取一个种子 ,一个变量 在实数轴上做一个非线性的变化 , 生成一个输出变量 .这个输出的变量可以用来作为一个伪随机种子来生成另外一个伪随机变量 . 对于所有 , 已知的 可以推导出后续的变量 以推导出整个序列,从而构造出一个时间上的箭头来。至关重要的是,同样的种子能产生完全相同的伪随机变量,是便于验证的,但没法进行逆向工程。 What the blockchain added, thanks to the hash function, is the condition that must be functionally and probabilistically bijective: no two seeds should produce the same output (or should produce a vanishingly low probability of that happening), what, in computer science terminology, is called collision. 感谢哈希函数的特性,区块链增加了一个特性,在 在功能和概率上都必须满足双射(bijective)的条件下:没有两个不同的种子能产生一个相同的结果(或者在概率上几乎不可能),在计算机科学的术语里,这种情况成为冲突(collision)。 (*)如果你知道哈希函数是啥,可以直接跳过。不知道的再看一遍 关于哈希算法 This hard-wired attribute and absence of supervision of the blockchain allow the storage of activities on a public ledger to facilitate peer-to-peer commerce, transactions, and settlements. The blockchain concept also allows for serial record keeping. This is supposed to help create what the original white paper [1] described as: A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. 因为这个哈希函数的固有性质和监管的缺失区块链技术能让大量的活动记录在一个公共的账本上,使得一个纯「点对点」的网络能记录商业活动,支付和清算。区块链的概念还能对连续的记录做到不可篡改的保存。这些性质为了实现中本聪白皮书描绘的目标: 一个纯的点对点版本的电子现金,可以让在线支付从一方直接支付到另外一方,而不依赖任何中间金融机构 From that paper, bitcoin makes use of three existing technologies: 1) the hash function, 2) the Merkle tree (to chain blocks of transactions tagged by the hash function), and 3) the concept of proof of work (used to deter spam by forcing agents to use computer time in order to qualify for a transaction) — technologies that, ironically, all came out of the academic literature[3]1 . The idea provides a game theoretic approach to mitigate the effects of the absence of custodian and lack of trust between participants in the maintenance of a permanent shared public ledger — attenuating or circumventing the coordination quandary known as the "Byzantine general problem". 在中本聪的这篇论文里,比特币使用了三项已经存在的技术:1)哈希函数,2)默克尔树(把一个个由哈希标记的记录数据块链接起来),和3)POW的概念(曾经用来阻止垃圾邮件的一个办法让计算机的工作时长来验证方法)。讽刺的是,所有这些技术都并不新,都是学术界早已有之的文献里[3] 。这个主意(指区块链技术)提供了一种博弈论层面上的方法,以缓解在维护永久公共账簿时缺乏托管人和参与者之间缺乏信任的问题。减弱或者绕过一种名叫「拜占庭将军问题」的协调困境。 (*)使用已经成熟很久的技术拼凑出一个新技术并不丢人和讽刺,利用久经考验的技术会让技术更可靠,这并没问题。显得略有讽刺是区块链技术的鼓吹者把这项技术吹得过于跨时代,好似再造天地一般。这个锅是区块链的过度鼓吹者的,笔者并不认为这是区块链应该被诟病的点。 As this discussion is focused on proof of work, we exclude from it Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies. 这里专注在讨论纯POW上,我们排斥类似以太坊或者其他加密数字货币 (*)以太坊要转用POS等完全原理上不同于POW的技术,之后关于POW的论述均不适用 The bitcoin transactional currency (BTC) system establishes an adversarial collaboration between the so-called "miners" who validate transactions by getting them on a public ledger; as a reward they get coins plus a fee from the underlying transactions, transfers of coins between parties. The proof of work method has an adjustable degree of difficulty based on the speed of blocks, which aims, in theory, to keep the incentive sufficiently high for miners to keep operating the system. Such adjustments lead to an exponential increase in computer power requirements, making at the time of writing onerous energy demands on the system — energy that could find alternatives in other computational and scientific uses. 比特币系统的可交易货币(BTC)建立在「矿工」们的竞争性合作上,矿工的责任是去验证公共账本上的交易是否合法;矿工会在验证参与者之间交易合法性的过程里获得一些币作为奖励。POW的算法会根据出块的速度来调整挖矿难度,理论上这个设计旨在为矿工创造足够的激励以保证网络的安全。这种调整造成了计算机算力需求指数性的增长,这需要能源的保证。这些算力和能源完全是可以用来做其他可算和科研用途的。 Miners derive their compensation from both seignorage (the market value of a bitcoin minus its mining costs) and transaction fees upon validation — with the plan to switch to transaction fees as the sole revenues upon the eventual depletion of the coins, which are limited to a fixed number. A central attribute is that bitcoin depends on the existence of such miners for perpetuity. Note that the entire ideological basis behind bitcoin is complete distrust of other operators — there are no partial custodians; the system is fully distributed, though prone to concentration . Furthermore, by the very nature of the blockchain, transactions are irreversible, no matter the reason. 矿工们有两个收入来源,一为铸币税(比特币的市值减去挖矿成本)和交易验证的手续费,这个手续费是计划在所有的挖矿奖励耗尽之后作为所有的收入,最后收敛在一个固定的数字。 (*)这里是比特币区块奖励的机制,每过一段时间区块奖励减半,最后直到没有,从而保证比特币的总量上限存在一个固定数字。当比特币达到最大值时,矿工的所有收益均来自于手续费。 比特币系统的存在完全是依赖于矿工们永久参与。 (*)意思是当区块奖励消失后,矿工们能否继续参与挖矿有问题,但比特币唯一的物理存在就是矿工,矿工要是不干了就彻底废了。这个担忧是确实存在的,矿工圈内亦有激烈讨论,不是空穴来风。 注意一下比特币背后的整个意识形态是对任何运营商性质的东西彻头彻尾的不信任,这里没有任何托管的概念;整个体系是彻底分布式的,虽然比特币有强烈的集中化的倾向 。还有,比特币无论如何交易是不能逆转的,无论什么原因它就是不能。 From public data, we were able to verify that the distribution of holdings of bitcoin follows a powerlaw with tail index , no different from the distribution of wealth in the U.S. 从公开数据上来看比特币的持有者符合幂律分布,集中度非常之高,和美国的财富分布程度差不多。 (*)意思是比特币是集中在少数人手上的,所以理念上的去中心化并没什么卵用,还是掌握在几个中心手上 Finally, note that bitcoins are zero-sum by virtue of the numerus clausus. 最后,注意一下比特币是一个零和游戏在一个numerus clausus 数里不断转手而已。 (*)这里的numerus clausus 是拉丁语,意思是「closed number」,意思是比特币就在一个封闭的小圈子里互相搞一个零和的游戏而已。四个人打麻将永远创造不出价值的。 As we will see, mathematical and combinatorial qualities do not necessarily translate into financial benefits at either individual or systemic levels. 所以我们可以看到,数学的各种组合性质并不一定能转换成各种真实的经济价值,无论是对个体而言还是对整个经济体系而言。 Comment 1: Why BTC is worth exactly 0 Gold and other precious metals are largely maintenance free, do not degrade over an historical horizon, and do not require maintenance to refresh their physical properties over time. Cryptocurrencies require a sustained amount of interest in them. 评论1:为什么比特币的价值就是0 黄金和其他贵金属是不用花钱来维持的,它们不会随着时间的流逝而降解,因为它们的物理属性决定了他们不需要主动维护。而加密数字货币需要持续不断的利益去让人们维系它们的存在。 VULNERABILITY OF REVENUE-FREE BUBBLES 无收益资产泡沫的弱点 A central result (even principle) in the rational expectations and securities pricing literature is that, thanks to the law of iterated expectations, if we expect now that we will expect the price to vary at some point in the future, then by backward induction such a variation must be incorporated in the price now. When there are no dividends, as with growth companies, there is still an expectation of future earnings, and a future expected reward to stockholders — directly via dividends, or indirectly via reverse dilutions and buybacks. It remains that a stock is a claim on accumulated assets and their residual value. 在一个理性期望的情况下(哪怕只是原则上的)或者是证券定价原理所阐述的那样,幸好我们有「双重期望值定律」,如果我们现在预期未来某个点我们会有一个对价格的期望,那么通过反推演算,这种变数一定包含在当下的价格之中。就算是没有股息的成长股也是对未来的收益有一定的期望,这个期望是指对股东在未来的回馈——无论是直接现金股息分红,或者是非直接的反稀释和回购等形式。股票仍然是对累积资产及其剩余价值的索取权。 (*)这里讲的未来贴现的股票定价模型,可以参考:如何简单明了地解释自由现金流折现? (*)这里的范围要略广一些,不仅仅是股息回报,所有的回购增加股东权益的行为都囊括进去了,意思是说明一个资产必然是因为未来有回报的(无论是不是以现金分红的形式)才造就了它当下的「贴现价值」。 (*)并且未来在某个条件下产生的某种期望的综合效果,和当下无视未来事件对期望的影响也一定是相同的,双重期望值定律给我们估值带来的巨大方便。 (*)双重期望值定律: (*)当Y条件下X的期望值,也就是未来股票或者资产产生某些事件对我们估值的影响(利好或者利空的事件),长期综合考虑它们影响的总和,也就是对所有条件期望再求期望,和无条件期望(完全不考虑未来可能产生的利多利空,也就是无视条件概率事件)最后必然也是一致的。 (*)我再换人话一下:风风雨雨最后长期还是看内在,当下只要观察长期价值,当下也必然反应长期。因为有双重期望值定律,我们不需要考虑太多可能产生条件下期望的事情对当下估值的影响,使得资产估值变为可能。 (*)再透一点,价值投资可以彻底无视未来可能对价值预估产生变动的扰动,因为这些未来潜在的扰动其实也已经含在现在都价格里。因为未来是不可知的,所以有了双重期望值定律,我们才有可能定价,无惧未知。 (*)这些都是为了说明价值投资理论的内涵用于后续的论述。 Earnings-free assets with no residual value are problematic. The implication is that, owing to the absence of any explicit yield benefitting the holder of bitcoin, if we expect that at any point in the future the value will be zero when miners are extinct, the technology becomes obsolete, or future generations get into other such "assets" and bitcoin loses its appeal for them, then the value must be zero now . 无收益资产是很成问题的。换言之,因为比特币的持有者是没有明确的期望收益。如果我们知道在未来的任意某一个时刻比特币的价值为0,比如矿工最后因为没区块奖励不干了,技术被更新换代了,或者新时代炒作的主题变成了其他「资产」比特币失去了投机的关注度,那么比特币现在的价值就应该是零。 (*)在价值投资里,一个东西未来的价格如果是0的话,那么它的「现值」必然是0。 (*)这段话的意思是比特币作为一个必须要有「后来人」接盘的东西,本身是无收益资产的话,那么几个可能让比特币归零的可能性存在,比特币的现值就应该是0。 (*)肯定有人会说黄金白银也是无收益资产,不照样不归零还新高嘛,这个在后文里有讲到。我们先来看小注释的内容 Using a traditional rational bubble model (see [4] and the review by [5]), we get the following conditions. Let be a discount rate and be a probability of absorption over a period. To escape the barrier, bitcoin must grow at forever, but no more, without remission, and with total certainty.Should it grow then stabilize, it still would be prone to extinction. We note that traditionally, models rule out any continuous growth at an exponential rate faster than because the security or asset would then represent the entire economy. Bitcoin distinguishes itself from other assets because of its fragility as a mere book entry on a virtual ledger that requires constant refreshing ad infinitum. 用一个传统的泡沫模型(参考文献[4]和文献[5]),我们需要满足如下的条件,令 为贴现率并且令 作为一个周期内的逃逸速度的概率。如果要逃离泡沫崩盘,比特币必须永远以 的速度上涨才能逃逸,且不能有任何一丝丝衰退,且100%肯定在增长。就算它稳住在一个水平,它也会有毁灭的倾向。我们注意到传统的这个泡沫模型排斥力任何连续增长速度快于 的情况因为证券或者资产是反应经济的。而比特币完全把自己排除在这之外,因为它仅仅是一个公共账本里的一个值,是很脆弱的,必须无穷无尽的增长。 (*)这两篇关于泡沫模型的论文我没读过,不过看着似乎挺有意思的。塔勒布的意思是根据这个泡沫模型,一个靠后来者接盘的东西本质上是一个旁氏模型,然后必须维持一定的增速,否则旁氏骗局就崩盘了。具体的推导过程大家可以去看引述的原论文。所有引述的论文最后会罗列。 (*)一个旁氏盘子必须药不能停,这个是肯定没问题的。如果比特币是完全依赖后来者以更高价格买走的旁氏的话,那么它维系存在的增长需求也是不断增长直到不可能的。塔勒布大致的意思是比特币那是比一般泡沫要虚得多的泡沫里的战斗机。 The typical comparison of bitcoin to gold is lacking in elementary financial rigor . We will see below how precious metals lost their quality as a medium of exchange; gold and other dividend-free precious items (such as other metals or stones) have held some financial status for more than 6, 000 years, and their physical status for several orders of magnitude longer (i.e., they did not degrade or mutate into some other alloy or mineral). So one can expect one’s gold or silver possessions to be around physically for at least the next millennium, as well as having some residual economic value by iteration, for the same reason. Metals have ample industrial uses with demand elasticity (and substitution for other raw materials). Currently, about half of gold production goes to jewelry (for which there are often no storage costs), one tenth to industry, and a quarter to central bank reserves. 经常拿黄金和比特币作比较这个是在金融问题上一个很幼稚的错误 。我们下面会看到贵金属是怎么失去它们的交易媒介属性的;黄金和其他非生息的贵重物(比如其他的金属或宝石)的金融属性有保持了超过6000多年,他们的物理属性能保持超过这个时间好几个数量级(他们不会衰变或者降解成其他物质)。所以我们能期望自己的黄金或者白银财产至少在下一个千年依然保持相同的物质形态,并且还有一些残存的经济价值。金属还会有很多工业价值,且有需求弹性(由其他金属的替代效应)。目前,黄金的产量一半用于珠宝业(一般这个行业不会有折旧损耗),十分之一用于工业,四分之一用于央行储备。 (*)意思是说贵金属宝石啥的并不是啥天然的货币,6000多年的金融属性历史远比不上它们更久远的历史,贵金属宝石等作为货币只占它们历史的很小一段,而且现在贵金属也失去了货币属性了。所以不存在什么金属天然是货币。且金属这类非生息资产因为有工业属性和其他用途,比如就是人们纯粹喜欢黄金而有价值。 (*)为什么把比特币称为电子黄金是不对的,是注释4的内容。 It is also a reasoning error to claim that an innovation, bitcoin, can become the "new gold" ab ovo, when gold wasn’t decided to be so by fiat thanks to a white paper; it organically became a reserve asset ex post, through centuries of competitive selection against other modes of storage, payment, and collectibles. Gold elicited an aesthetic fascination and had been used as jewelry and store of value for more than two millennia before it became, literally, a currency or before there was such a thing as a currency. The Phoenicians used it as store of value because there was demand for it, and it was not until the 6 th C. BCE that coins from Sardis became a widespread means of exchange [6]. 注释4:声称比特币是一个伟大的创新因为它变成了一个「新黄金」从一开始就是一个归因错误。当黄金还没有成为那么「法币」的时候,它很早就成为了一个储备资产了,在过去很多世纪里它和不同形式的存储物支付工具和收藏品竞争。黄金引领了一种审美被用于珠宝和价值存储是要远早于它变成字面意义上的货币至少两千年。腓尼基人用它作为存储价值的工具是因为他们很渴望黄金,直到公元前6世纪,萨迪斯的硬币才成为一种广泛的交易手段[6]。 (*)这段注释的意思是不能倒果为因,黄金在成为货币前因为大家都很想要了,所以才脱颖而出变成一种储备资产,然后才有把黄金当做货币的事情发生。是先有大家想要黄金为因,才有黄金被当做货币为果。先宣传一个东西是货币,然后说它是新黄金是不对的。 (*)一个东西能成为货币储备是因为大家想要它,而不是它像黄金。黄金也是因为大家要它,它才成为货币储备资产的,而非反过来。 (*)到这里大致的意思是要么一个资产是生息资产,我们能通过贴现模型的方式估值资产。而一个纯粹靠后来者接盘维系价格的旁氏结构未来对增长的需求会达到不可能实现而必然走向崩盘。比特币是非生息资产。 (*)例如黄金这样的也是非生息资产的东西,它能保持自己的价值是因为有需求,或者珠宝业人家喜欢黄金,或者是工业属性。且黄金存在的时间远远长于其作为货币属性的时间。是因为黄金被广泛的有需求了,才会让黄金脱颖而出成为货币的一种候选,并且黄金现在也失去了货币属性。 (*)所以因为比特币和黄金一样是稀缺不可再生的,就论证比特币一定会像黄金一样具备货币属性(黄金自己都没有了),这个逻辑推断是不成立的。是先有需求才有储备价值,才发展成货币。而非单纯因为稀有。如果比特币不能让人产生需求,仅就不可再生和稀缺的话,是站不住脚的论断。 (*)要么你拿贴现模型来,要么有人消费的供需模型来,否则就得用泡沫模型了,是个泡沫迟早要灭。如果迟早要灭,那么贴现价值也就是0了。 Path dependence is a problem. We cannot expect a book entry on a ledger that requires active maintenance by interested and incentivized people to keep its physical presence, a condition for monetary value, for any period of time — and of course we are not sure of the interests, mindsets, and preferences of future generations. Once bitcoin drops below a certain threshold, it may hit an absorbing barrier and stays at 0 — gold on the other hand is not path dependent in its physical properties . As discussed in [7], technologies tend to be supplanted by other technologies with a vulnerability in proportion to their past survival duration (>99% of the new is replaced by something newer), whereas items such as gold and silver have proved resistant to extinction. 路径依赖也是一个问题。我们不能指望区块链的账本信息一直考对比特币有兴趣的参与者们长期维护其物理存在,从而保留起货币价值,未来任意一个时刻没人维护了就都不存在了。并且我们肯定是没法确定未来世代的人的想法兴趣和行为方式。 一旦比特币的价格跌到一定的临界值,那个它将会撞上一个「吸收壁」,并且保持价格为0,黄金恰恰相反,它不依赖其他的维系方式能独立保持其物理属性。如[文献7]里讨论的一样,技术往往会被其他技术所取代,这些技术的弱点与其过去的生存时间成正比(>99%的新生事物会被更新的食物取代)。而金银等物被证明是会长期保持不灭的。 (*)意思是比特币和黄金白银不一样,它要维持自己在物理世界的存在,需要矿工们持续支付代价来维持存在。而未来的人是不是会继续对比特币网络有那么高的兴趣来维护昂贵的区块链的运行成本,我们没办法知道。如果有更好的记账技术了,比特币主链会被放弃,那就会归零,而未来会归零的东西的贴现值就是零。也就是说除非币圈信仰充值药不能停能维持到天荒地老,并且当中不能有任何断档,不然迟早有一天要归零。中间任何一个10分钟都不能断是颇为脆弱的。 (*)长期来看,很难想象比特币的区块链技术就是最优版本,这也不符合计算机软件发展的规律。目前比特币的主链是否会是未来的最大市值链,甚至是否有挖矿的经济效益,确实是不确定的。并且未来如果有比区块链更好的作为记账的手段,抛弃区块链也不是不可能的事情。但这个未来可能会有更好方案的推论其实可以普适于一切对技术的评论。笔者认为这种诘难过于宽泛。 (*)但区块链需要一刻不停的以高成本维护确实是一个脆弱点,触及「吸收壁」效应的话,可能就会发生比较大的问题。相比于贵金属等而言需要高维护成本是一个实打实的弱点和劣势,这是不可否认的。下面的注释 会进一步解释「吸收壁」效应。 (*)硬分叉或许是一个保持动态升级的办法,虽然其有负面效应,一刻不能停确实是一个很严苛的要求,很难想象长期到千年的级别,区块链能保持 always online。笔者更加相信在链在技术上撞到脆弱性的时间要晚于有比目前区块链技术更好的新技术的出现的时间。比区块链更优的新技术让挖矿成为不经济行为的可能性更大。 The absorbing barrier does not have to be 0 for the price to spiral to 0 upon hitting the barrier. This is similar to saying "if the heart rate drops below ten beats per minutes, it will be 0 (death)" — nor does it necessarily have to be caused by a drop in price. 吸收壁并不一定需要归零后才会触发死亡螺旋。这个有点类似说「如果心率降低到每分钟十次的话,心率迟早是要归零的(死亡)」——这个归零也不一定是需要由价格归零触发点。 (*)吸收壁效应的意思就是临界触发死亡螺旋的这么一个比喻,一旦触及到了,就不可逆的走向灭亡。 Furthermore bitcoin is supposed to be hacker-proof and is based on total infallibility in the future, not just at present. It is crucial that bitcoin is based on perfect immortality; unlike conventional assets, the slightest mortality rate puts its value at 0 . 另外比特币被认为是被黑客攻击久经考验下来非常安全的资产,并且未来会一直安全,不仅仅是现在安全。比特币在安全性上的完美无瑕对于比特币来说是至关重要的。不像传统资产,略有一丝的瑕疵就会要了比特币的命。 (*)从信息安全的角度上来说,没有绝对安全的系统,比特币亦然。比特币的区块链技术在历史上也有几次安全漏洞和更新,但并不是所有的安全漏洞都触发了吸收壁。但这确实是一个很大的风险隐患,我们确实没法确定比特币是否目前还藏着致命的安全性缺陷,没人知道。相比于黄金这类靠物理定律保持稳定的,确实是个劣势。而一旦有概率不小于0的比特币漏洞能导致比特币网络出致命问题,那么它的贴现值就是0这个推论是正确的。由此可以构造同义的句子:在未来无穷长的时间内,比特币技术存在任意致命漏洞的概率大于0的情况下,比特币当下的贴现价值为0。比特币:我太难了…… To counter the effect of the absorbing barrier, the asset must grow at an exponential rate forever, without remission, and with total certainty. Belief in such an immortality for BTC — and its total infallibility — is in line with the common observation that its enthusiastic investors have the attributes of a religious cult. 要对抗吸收壁效应的话,资产段增值必须以一种指数爆炸的性质永远增长,并且不能有衰退,且完全肯定。对于比特币完全不朽的信念,和人们观察到的币圈近乎宗教信仰式的热情是完全一致的。 (*)意思是比特币泡沫不触及到吸收壁除非有宗教信仰般的热情,否则不可能。而现在比特币还杵在那里是因为我们确实看到币圈搞的跟邪教一样。 Principle 1: Cumulative ruin 定律1:持续损耗原理 If any non-dividend yielding asset has the tiniest probability of hitting an absorbing barrier (causing its value to become 0), then its present value must be 0. 如果任意一个非生息资产有哪怕再小点概率撞到吸收壁上(能让它归零的),那么它的现值就是0。 (*)上一篇的贴限值理论和链接可以参考阅读,反复在用这个推论。 We exclude collectibles from that category, as they have an aesthetic utility as if one were, in a way, renting them for an expense that maps to a dividend — and thus are no different from perishable consumer goods. The same applies to the jewelry side of gold: my gold necklace may be worth 0 in thirty years, but then I would have been wearing it for six decades. 我们排除了收藏品品类,因为它们具有美学价值,某种意义上来说,租用这些收藏品获取的效用就和收到股息分红是一样的,这和快销易腐食品差不多。同样适用于黄金首饰等。我的大金链子可能在三十年里价格归零,但到那个时候我已经戴了六十年了。 (*)意思是收藏品这类的持续在给人产生消费价值,这个持续产生的消费价值和股息分红是一个意思。是分批「划拨」给持有者的。大金链子戴六十年给塔勒布带来的效用已经「回本」了。 (*)这里得理解经济学上关于「效用」的意思,未必是金钱上的,满足你需求的都能改变人的经济行为。假如你买了一幅画,你越看越舒坦,其美学价值让你吃饭后看个十分钟就能觉得妙不可言,然后你持续看了三十年到你撒手人寰被你儿子贱卖掉。那么这三十年来给的这个舒适感也可以算作是「效用分红」,算变相的派息。 (*)按照这个收藏品效用的算法,NFT比BTC靠谱,我一时略有凌乱。抬个杠,我钱包里有比特币特看着就特满足算不算呢? The difference between the current bitcoin bubble and past recent ones, such as the dot-com episode spanning the period over 1995-2000, is that shell companies were at least promising some type of future revenue stream. Bitcoin would be allowed to escape a valuation methodology had it proven to be a medium of exchange or satisfied the condition for a numeraire from which other goods could be priced. But currently it is not, as we will see next. 比特币的泡沫和过去几十年的泡沫,比如在1995-2000年的.com互联网泡沫不一样的是,互联网泡沫好歹空壳公司们还承诺未来会以某种形式创造现金流收入。比特币如果想要不用这种估值方式定价的话,则比特币必须被证明一种交易媒介或者其他各种商品的估值模式。但目前来看,并没有,我们下面会论述。 (*)意思是纯交易媒介,也就是现金货币是不能用上面说的那些估值模式来定价的,或者世界上还有一些特殊的资产定价的模式,如果比特币是货币属性的话,就可以超然。塔勒布认为并没有。 SUCCESS IN WRONG PLACES 在错误的领域里成功 More generally, the fundamental flaw and contradiction at the base of most cryptocurrencies is, as we saw, that the originators, miners, and maintainers of the system currently make their money from the inflation of their currencies rather than just from the volume of underlying transactions in them. Hence the total failure of bitcoin to become a currency has been masked by the inflation of the currency value, generating (paper) profits for a large enough number of people to enter the discourse well ahead of its utility. 总的来说,大多数加密数字货币根本性的缺陷和矛盾是:我们看到的,发起者矿工和维系整个体系的参与者们是从通胀里赚钱的,而不是通过他们都货币来清算各种交易从而产生收益的。因此比特币作为货币的尝试是彻底失败的,但这个失败被货币价值的通胀所掩盖,产生了大量的账面盈利,大到足以让人们不关心它作为货币的效用本身。 (*)这里说的是比特币作为货币属性的失败,如果是一个货币那么应该根据利用该货币清算的交易来得出它的媒介价值,也就是 ,当使用一个货币清算的商品数量和价格足够多的时候,货币是有价值的。但比特币并没用来清算什么贸易,而是一个通胀里的纸面富贵的游戏而已。 (*)人们沉迷于这个账面盈利的游戏,以至于不关心它有没有真的当货币用,这个是币圈里的现实。之前有尝试过比特币作为支付工具的创业公司,无一例外的都没成功,比特币在交易媒介领域并不成功。最初用比特币买披萨的反而是一个正途,而后期比特币虽然市值很高,但作为货币的尝试是失败的。但是 Who cares,币圈的人都盯着某某某发财了我也想要,比特币是不是货币确实没人关心。 Comment 2: Success for a digital currency 数字货币的成功标准 There is a mistaken conflation between success for a "digital currency", which requires some stability and usability, and speculative price appreciation. 一个「数字货币」需要成功的话,有一些矛盾:它要求稳定性和可用性,又要求有价格投机的价值。 Transactions in bitcoin are considerably more expensive than wire services or other modes of transfers, or ones in other cryptocurrencies . They are order of magnitudes slower than standard commercial systems used by credit card companies —anecdotally, while you can instantly buy a cup of coffee with your cell phone, you would need to wait ten minutes if you used bitcoin . They cannot compete with African mobile money. . Nor can the system outlined above —as per its very structure —accommodate a large volume of transactions — which is something central for such an ambitious payment system. 比特币的交易转账费用是很贵的,比电汇或者其他形式的转账要贵很多,就算和其他加密数字货币比也很贵。比特币转账要花费很长时间,相比于信用卡公司的系统,你如果要买一杯咖啡的话你可以用手机立刻完成支付,但如果你要用比特币的话,起码要等十分钟以上。甚至比不上非洲的移动支付,更别说和上面提到的其他方式比了。而比特币的结构设计也没办法承载大容量的交易——这对于一个雄心勃勃的支付系统来说应该是核心功能才对。 (*)批评比特币支付手段又慢又贵,比特币每秒7笔的处理速度从开始就被人诟病,大区块路线和闪电网络等方案也都是针对这个问题的。客观的说,原版的比特币作为一个通用支付系统,肯定是不够看的。 Transactions in bitcoin are orders of magnitude more expensive than those done using African mobile phones. 比特币的交易费用比非洲移动支付都要贵得多 "As it grew in popularity, Bitcoin became cumbersome, slow, and expensive to use. It takes about 10 minutes to validate most transactions using the cryptocurrency and the transaction fee has been at a median of about $20 this year." By Eswar Prasad, New York Times, Jun 15, 2021. 比特币的交易支付体系又笨重又慢而且很贵,用了10分钟才验证了一笔交易而且这个交易的平均费用高达20美元,Eswar Prasad,纽约时报,2021年6月15报道 There appear to be other protocols issued from the original white paper that claim to be more transaction focused; as with Ethereum, we exclude them from this analysis. 这里讨论的是原版白皮书的比特币协议,其他一些协议号称要专注在交易速度上,比如以太坊,我们这里不讨论那一些 (*)蛤?这是没见识过以太坊大堵塞吗?! To date, twelve years into its life, in spite of all the fanfare, but with the possible exception of the price tag of Salvadoran permanent residence (3 bitcoins), there are currently no prices fixed in bitcoin floating in fiat currencies in the economy. 迄今为止,比特币诞生12年以来,虽然大张旗鼓,但除了萨尔瓦多公民身份(标价3比特币)之外,没有任何一个商品是根据比特币来标价而对于其他法币来说是浮动定价的。 (*)这个是充分说明比特币目前并没有被当做货币用的一个例证,确实如此。 PRINCIPLES FOR A CURRENCY 货币的规律 First, let’s discuss the demonetization of gold. In 1971, the U.S. government terminated the Bretton Woods Agreement, ending the convertibility of the U.S. dollar into gold. Gold stocks were growing too slowly, and, as mentioned earlier, much of it went to jewelry and industry — the most robust theory is that there was not enough gold to keep up with economic growth . Furthermore, there had been long debates over the hampering of monetary policy by sticking to metals, as witnessed by the bullionist controversy .It appears that developed economies have trouble hooking their currencies to a commodity. 首先我们来讨论一下黄金的去货币化过程。在1971年美国政府决定终止布雷顿森林体系,结束了美元与黄金之间的挂钩。黄金的总储备增长太慢了,并且上面也提到了很多黄金流向了珠宝业和工业——目前最完备的理论认为黄金的增长速度是没办法满足经济的增长的 。另外,金银本位主义的争论旷日持久 。似乎,用一种商品来锚定的办法来发型货币对于发展经济来说是有问题的。 (*)传统的经济学理论认为货币的增长应该要和经济总量的增长保持一个平衡,这样这种货币才有利于经济的发展。黄金本来开采的量就不多,且没法预测,还流向珠宝业和工业(导电性等特质)的话,就会造成通缩。这样用黄金挂钩做货币就显得很糟糕了。但这个在经济学是有争议的,不是金科玉律。 Ironically the U.S. deficit caused the dollar to be more widely available and used, in stable supply, by what is called the Triffin paradox 讽刺的是美国其实因为美元被广泛的应用并且稳定供给而遭受了大规模的财政赤字,这个被称之为「特里芬悖论」 (*)特里芬悖论的意思是如果美元和黄金挂钩,而其他货币和美元挂钩(也就是布雷顿森林体系),那么美元取得了核心的地位,别国为了发展国际贸易就必须储备美元,这样美元对于美国而言就是净流出的,美元在海外不断沉淀,则美国必然是逆差过。而美国作为维持美元稳定的主体,又必须是长期顺差国才能保持美元的稳定。这两者都要同时满足是矛盾的。由著名的经济学家罗伯特特里芬提出,所以叫特里芬悖论。 Even Ricardo got drawn in, see Ricardo’s 1811-1816 arguments [8],[9], and commentary by Jevons [10]. 关于金银本位制的争论,连李嘉图也下场争论过,见1811-1816的争论[文献8][文献9],杰文斯的评论[10] (*)伯南克也是这个论题里比较出名的经济学家,相关的论文也被引用不少,但塔勒布特看不起伯南克来着,哈哈哈。 In the early 1970s, the Hunt brothers started to hoard silver (when they started, U.S. citizens were banned from directly owning gold), and accelerated their hoarding in the late 1970s, turning it into a squeeze. It lead to a speculative explosion in the price of silver, as shown in Fig 3, leading by contagion to between a fivefold and tenfold increase in the price of precious metals. Then, upon the deflation of the bubble, metals gave back more than half of their gains and languished for more than two decades. At the time of writing, 41 years later, neither gold nor silver have, inflation adjusted, reached their previous peak. The same effect took place in 2008-2009 in the wake of the banking crisis: gold and silver jumped upwards between 80 and 120 % then subsequently lost most of their gains. 1970年代早期亨特兄弟开始囤白银(那会儿美国公民是不允许私人持有黄金的),且在1970年代末加速囤积了白银,并形成了一次扎空。如上图所显示的那样这导致了白银和黄金的价格发生了投机性的暴涨,并且带动了其他贵金属产生了5到10倍以上的暴涨。然后,随着泡沫的破裂,金属的价格发生了腰斩并且在未来的二十年内萎靡不振。在本文写作的时刻,也就是41年后,经过通胀调整来计算,黄金和白银的价格也没回升到原来的高点。2008-2009年的银行业危机也是同样的模式,黄金和白银的价格在80%到120%之间的幅度飙升然后大部分价值又都还回去了。 Gold and silver proved then that they could neither be a reliable numeraire, nor an inflation hedge. The world had become too sophisticated for precious metals. If we consider the most effective numeraire, it must be the one in which the bulk of salaries are paid, as we will show next. 黄金和白银已经被证明了它们没办法胜任一个好的计价工具,也不是可靠的通胀对冲。这个世界已经变得越来越险恶了。如果我们要考虑使用一种东西作为计价工具,它必须是大部分可以用支付来薪水的,我们接下来看。 Comment 3: Payment system 评论3:支付体系 There is a conflation between "accepting bitcoin for payments" and pricing goods in bitcoin. To "price" in bitcoin, bitcoin the price must be fixed, with a conversion into fiat floating, rather than the reverse 在「接受比特币支付」和用比特币定价之间是有差异的。以比特币计价是值它相对于比特币而言是固定的,并且相对于法币而言它是浮动的,而不是相反。 (*)意思和上面那个萨尔瓦多的公民身份开价3比特币是一个意思。比特币从7万刀左右跌到2万刀,那个公民资格还是卖3BTC,没有变成10.5 BTC保持21万美元的价格才叫以比特币定价,区别于「接受比特币支付」。 Let us go deeper into how a currency can come about. No transaction between two persons is analytically pairwise in an open economy. The root of the confusion lies in the prevalent naïve-libertarian illusion that a transaction between two consenting adults, when devoid of coercion, is effectively just a transaction between two consenting adults and can be isolated and discussed as such . But one must consider the ensemble of transactions and the interactions between agents: people happen to engage in contractual agreements with others; for them a specific transaction is just one piece. To be able to regularly buy goods denominated in bitcoin (whose prices fixed in bitcoin but floating in U.S.$ or some other fiat currency), one must have an income that is fixed in bitcoin. Such an income must come from somewhere, say, an employer. For an employer to pay a salary fixed in bitcoin, she or he must be getting revenues fixed in bitcoin. Furthermore, for the vendor to offer a can of beer in fixed bitcoins, she or he must be paying for the raw material, and have the overhead fixed in bitcoin. The same applies to the mismatch of assets and obligations on a balance sheet. All this requires a parity in bitcoin-USD of low enough volatility to be tolerable and for variations to remain inconsequential. 让我们更深入的来看一看货币是怎么来的。在一个开放的经济体内,没有两个人之间的交易是如同经济学分析里说的那样完美的匹配且成对的出现。这个谎言的根基是来自于普遍的自由主义的臆想:两个独立自由意志的成年人在不受强迫的情况下可以被单独提出来像理论分析那样就能以最高效的形成交易 。 现实情况是必须要考虑许许多多交易的整体作用和人和人之间的互动。人们碰巧在一个特定的合同下和人交易,这种情况只是生活中的一隅。如果要以比特币定价的方式来日常性的购买商品(以比特币定价而对美元等法币浮动),那么这个人的收入也应该以比特币来计价。意思是说,这种收入结构意味着一个人的薪水是拿比特币来支付的,他或她比如获得比特币计价的固定收入。并且购买一瓶啤酒也要以比特币计价,他或她支付各类原材料成本和其他开销等等都要以比特币来计价。对于资产负债表的两侧都要以比特币来计价。所有这一切都必须有一个比特币兑美元的足够低波动率的情况下才能忍受,使得这个兑换率的变化不那么灾难性。 (*)这里涉及到的一个概念是「交易成本」。真实世界里的交易不是没成本的,在一个异常孤立的经济学设想里,交易用什么货币清算是无关紧要的,因为可以把所有的交易都附加上一个外汇掉期互换。但真实的世界里,不可能所有涉及到的交易都频繁的做这种附加合同,必须考虑真实世界的日常清算的交易成本。一次涉及到汇率掉期的交易只能是偶尔出现的,不可能日常买菜等琐事里高频出现。 (*)纯粹的用一个个合同来解释自由人的经济活动是一个过度理想化的学术设想而已,是一个真空球形鸡式的构想,真实的世界不是这样的。人们在一个个合同下和人进行理性人博弈互动是偶尔的。大量的日常交易如果有一方要用比特币来进行计价的话,那意味着牵一发而动全身,所有的必须都用比特币来定价。除非比特币和现在最主流的清算方式,也就是美元,其之间的波动率小到可以不产生非常严重的影响。 (*)笔者的生活经验里有接触到一些跨国的不方便用正常银行渠道的清算案例,用USDT的交易远多于BTC。 (*)大体的意思是说比特币倘若真要走货币属性路线,那除非所有人突然都用比特币计价,否则它必须与当下世界的主流清算方式保持一个很小的波动率才有可能。 There are also arbitrage bounds present in any sufficiently efficient economy with relatively free markets. Furthermore, if a vendor prices goods in bitcoin, and the value fluctuates from the initial fixing, the price will be directly or indirectly arbitraged: when the conversion rate to fiat is favorable, customers will buy from the bitcoiner; when it is unfavorable they will either buy elsewhere (indirect arbitrage), or if possible, return previously purchased goods (direct arbitrage). For the price to not be arbitrageable requires the good to be unique and unavailable elsewhere at a price fixed in another currency –in this case it becomes, simply, a proxy for bitcoin. The only items that currently appear to be somewhat priced in bitcoin are other cryptocurrencies, even then not always. 在一个正常的自由市场经济体里中是会有套利边界的存在,如果一个商贩给商品以比特币计价,那么在产生套利机会的时候它就会直接或者间接的套利:当(以比特币计价的商品)换算成法币有利可图时,顾客会从比特币定价者那里买,当换算成法币不划算的时候他们会从其他地方买(非直接套利),或者如果可能的话,还会把之前用比特币买的商品退掉(直接套利)。如果想要价格无法被这样套利,除非一种商品被固定只能用一种货币购买,绑定锁死——这种情况下,这类商品就是比特币的代理。目前来看,比特币唯一绑定购买的商品是其他的加密数字货币,甚至有的还不行。 (*)上面这一段套利的意思是:因为比特币和主流法币的汇率不稳定且自由市场自发的会出现套利行为,所以用比特币固定的去定价日常商品和服务是不可能的。假设一个人用比特币定价一箱啤酒因为比特币波动太大,而套利者一直存在,那么这个商贩平时啥事都别做了,每时每刻都不断修改报价了。 (*)这里的锁定某类商品必须用一种货币清算恰是当今石油-美元体系的方式,即强制用美元清算石油来使得美元的价值始终是存在的,美元成了纸原油,也就是一个代理机制。而比特币作为货币来看的话,唯一用它来购买的只有其他币这是个循环论证了。 (*)当一个货币能且只有它能购买某类大家都需要的商品时,它必然是有价值的。就好比当只有粮票能购买到粮食时,粮票也产生了一种货币属性是可流通的。现在目前全球很多货币的央行的资产负债表里的资产是美元,本身是个二级锚定机制,美元是原油的一级代理,那么这些央行资产表里是美元的货币就是原油的二级代理。 Bimetalism did not last long [11], nor could commodities last as currencies in developed economies[12]. More generally, the reasons multiple currencies exist (in the absence of pegs) is because there is not enough globalization and markets are not entirely free between currency zones. And some goods and services, "such as haircuts and auto repair cannot be traded internationally" [13] ; they are not, to use the language of quantitative finance, arbitrageable. 金银双本位制度并没有持续很久[文献11],商品本位制也没有在发达国家也没持续很久[文献12]。总的来说,目前还有如此多的货币种类存在(在非挂钩货币的情况下),是因为全球化的程度没到那个程度且国家之间的市场也不是彻底全面的开放的。有些商品和服务比如理财或者汽车维修在国际间是非贸易品[文献13];用量化金融术语来说,它们不能被「套利」。 (*)发达国家的理发师和汽车维修师的收入数倍于欠发达国家,并非是因为他们的服务好很多,也并没有引发发达国家的人都集体跑去欠发达国家修车和理发,那是因为存在国界和距离。这也是经济学里说的非可贸易商品的概念。如果所有的商品和服务都在零运费和零关税的情况下可以自由贸易,那么套利会抹平所有的价差。但真实的世界里是不可能这样理想化的。所以才会出现多币种同时存在且没有被套利抹平一切。固定挂钩汇率的情况除外,例如港币挂钩美元,那在经济学意义上,它们名字不一样,但其实是一种货币。 (*)这是补充说明上面那一段套利会让货币互相趋平的一个补丁,按照上面那一段世界就不应该有那么多种货币同时存在了,双币制和单一商品制不成立是好解释了,但无法解释当今世界货币林立。这里给的补丁是真实的世界套利不是那么理想化的。 In 2021, the governments (central and local) share of GDP in Western economies is around 30-60%, one order of magnitude higher than it was in the 1900s. Government employees and contractors get paid in fiat currency; taxes are collected similarly 在2021年,西方主要发达经济体的政府(包括中央和地方)占据了GDP大概30%~60%的经济活动总量。这个比1900年代那时候比整整高出了一个数量级。政府雇员和承包商们是以法币形式被支付工资和报酬的,交税也会变得很简单容易 。 The use of the designation "fiat" may be a misleading stretch of language: money is not created by edict but largely via credit, by governments or the private sectors — and both lenders and borrowers need the least volatile currency. 使用「法币」一词来描述在语义上容易产生望文生义的误会;货币并不是由法令来创造出来的而是信用创造出来的。政府或者其他私人部门——借贷双方都需要一个波动比较小的通货。 (*)这里其实主要讲的是货币场景的争夺,倘若真的有一天有一种货币要和法币竞争,那作为货币属性的竞争本质上是在竞争使用场景。也就是要把 右边的用于支付的商品服务的量给提上来。现在政府已经占据了GDP活动的三成到六成了,那么政府只要坚持用法币支付报酬和收税,又有什么东西能和政府法定的法币来竞争呢?用更币圈的话术阐述:政府已经掌握了货币使用场景的51%攻击了。 (*)也不用过于悲观,法币其实并不是政府法令凭空创造的,也是要借其信用做支撑的。津巴布韦政府滥发货币依然是其国家唯一指定的法定货币,但本地已经被弃用了。所谓法币,依然是要用信用支撑的,不是一个敕令就大家所有人都必须认的。 Finally, while within a modern currency zone a bimetallic style dual currency cannot easily exist, the same limitations exist between currency zones; parity between currencies tend to be subjected to volatility bounds. An observation we currency option traders made while doing cross-currency volatility arbitrages is that the volatility of a currency pair is inversely proportional to the trade between the two currency zones — countries heavy into trade such as Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Singapore (at some point) have maintained explicit pegs to the U.S. dollar or some basket. There could be an interactive relationship between trade and volatility: one can argue that the stability of a currency-pair (adjusted for the yield curve) encourages trade and trade in turn brings stability to the pair . 在一个地区双币制的存在是很难的,相同的情况在两个货币区之间也存在着约束效应;货币之间也存在着波动率的边界。我们汇率期权交易员能明显的观察到的现象是:当我们做跨币种的波动率套利交易的时候汇率的波动率和这两个货币区之间的贸易量存在反比关系。和美国贸易非常密切的地区比如香港,沙特阿拉伯,阿联酋和新加坡(有时候)会出现货币和美元非常挂钩的情况。在汇率的波动率和贸易的密切程度之间会有互动关联的联系。人们可以说货币兑之间的稳定(在收益率曲线平价调整后)促进了贸易,而贸易又反过来促进了货币兑的稳定。 (*)这个结论和观察并不意外,我们理解了上文的套利活动的频繁存在就能理解为什么互相贸易比较频繁的两个地区的货币汇率会偏向于稳定了。 (*)期权是一种衍生品,本身是交易一个标的的波动率的,即可以下注它的波动变大和变小。在汇率的期权市场交易就是在交易某两个货币之间汇率变动的波动剧烈程度。所以汇率的期权市场最能直接观察到该汇率兑的稳定性。 (*)这个之间也存在着一种自我加强的正反馈过程,稳定的汇率使得两国之间的贸易并不需要太多考虑汇率波动的风险,而因为不用考虑汇率波动的风险,那么两个之间的贸易会增大而这个增大又加强了汇率的稳定。 Currency pairs often show fake volatility as the spot price can be fluctuating, but forward contracts do less so, owing to interest rate adjustments in the weak currency: interest rates rise to compensate holders for the devaluation. 货币兑经常出现很多假的高波动,通常出现在现汇市场;不过远期市场很少这样,因为弱势货币的利率调整的关系,利率上升会补偿持有者的贬值。 (*)这里讲的是汇率市场的平价定律,意思是实际货币兑之间的平稳性要比现汇市场的波动率看上去要小。这里并不改变上面通过汇率期权市场观察汇率稳定性的有效性。因为期权定价锚定的也是标的物的未来的价格,汇率期权定价定的外汇远期的波动率而非即期汇率的波动率。所以塔勒布作为汇率期权交易员的观察没问题。 .We note here that quantitative finance operates along the lines of neoclassical economic theory in that both share a central principle: absence of arbitrage, which maps to the law of one price — the former, a concept initially aimed at goods and services, may be broadened to include asset valuation [14]. When we apply the law of one price to currencies, we realize using basic arbitrage arguments that the recent globalization does not allow for different currencies to coexist in the same marke: one must win 我们注意到量化金融和新古典主义经济学都遵循的原则:无风险套利不存在假设和一价定律,前者包括了所有的商品和服务,应该囊括资产定价在内[文献14]。当我们应用一价定律在货币上的时候,我们意识到用最基本的套利规则那么当今全球化的请下事实上不允许同一个市场里存在两种不同的货币,有一个必须赢家通吃。 (*)这是另外一个金融学话题,和主旨无关,不展开。 Now bitcoin, as seen in Fig.1 has maintained extremely high volatility throughout its life (between 60% and 100% annualized) and, what is worse, at higher prices, which makes it’s capitalization considerably more volatile, rising in price as shown in Fig. 2 — is it too volatile to fail? 现在再来看比特币的波动率,图1显示比特币在其生命周期里持续产生了超高的波动率(年化大概60%到100%之间)更糟糕的是,其价格越高,使得它的资本化率更加动荡。 (*)总结一下这一整大断的意思:一个东西要成为货币属性的东西,它必须不能和商品的价值之间产生太大的波动率,因为这个世界是存在频繁套利的且普遍遵循一价定律,那么频繁套利会使得改候选货币无法在真实的日常的生活里充当货币的角色,因为交易成本会高到不可忍受(买卖双方要过于频繁的修改交易)。并且这个推论放到国际货币市场上也是完全成立的,能被作为可贸易货币的东西会互相稳定下来,做不到的这不可能成为可贸易货币圈子里的一员。底层的例外是如果你能锚定一种广泛被需要的商品必须用此种货币来交易,但比特币能锚定交易的只有其他币,没有任何一种商品可以。除了萨尔瓦多的公民身份之外一个都没有。货币自由竞争的场景下因为政府活动已经占了GDP的三成到六成,那么在使用场景的竞争上比特币也不可能是法币的对手。 THE DIFFICULTY WITH INFLATION HEDGES 对冲通胀的难题 This does not mean that a cryptocurrency cannot displace fiat –it is indeed desirable to have at least one real currency without a government. But the new currency just needs to be more appealing as a store of value by tracking a weighted basket of goods and services with minimum error. 这并不是说加密数字货币这个形式一定不能取代法币,一个没有政府背景的「真·货币」是一个非常棒的主意。不过这个新的货币需要一个更好的锚定一揽子商品和服务的表现(更小的跟踪误差),让它更能作为价值的存储。 Displacing fiat is not easy, and has been done locally — though no single item has proved to be permanent and the difficulty is best represented in the following example. During the 1970s, the Italian national telephone tokens, the gettoni, were considered acceptable tender, almost always accepted as payment. The price of the espresso when expressed in lira varied over time, but it remained sticky to the gettone. For a while the gettone proved the closest money to track the Fisher Index across 12 communes[15] . And while the gettoni worked for daily purchases such as espresso, it is doubtful that they could have been used as payment for an Alfa Romeo [17]. 取代法币不是一个容易的事情,哪怕就是在局部地区而言也是——目前没有一个例子可以证明永久性的法币的替代品。我们现在下面的例子里可以很好的体现出来。在1970年代,意大利国际通话公司发行的token,叫gettoni,被认为是可接受的类货币,几乎都已经是可以用来做日常支付了。以里拉计价的浓咖啡的价格一直在波动,不过以gettoni来定价倒是物价很稳定。一度gettoni被认为 最接近追踪12个社区里的费雪指数的货币。虽然大家都在一段时间里认可gettoni能买到咖啡,不过对于能不能用于买一台阿尔法.罗密欧车表示怀疑。 (*)这里指的不是代金券,比如星巴克发的以人民币计价的礼品券和这里完全是两个概念。这个gettoni 币和里拉没有固定的兑换关系。而它在一定情况下追踪物价要比里拉好,那居民就更乐意拿它做货币使用(买卖双方都希望获得和物价最小的误差方差)。 Considering that communications get cheaper over time, the notion of a telephone call is today, in the Zoom days, obsolete. So the gettone story illustrates the fact that, owing to technological changes, in the long term, no single item, such a telephone call, will permanently track inflation indices and act as a store of value. Even categories have their weights naturally revised over time: the share of food and clothing declined by almost threefold as a proportion of Western consumers expenditure since the great recession. Thus we can look at an inflation hedge as the analog of a minimum variance numeraire. 考虑到通讯的成本越来越低,在有了Zoom的日子里,打电话的概念都过时了。所以这个gettone 的故事说明了一个事实:由于技术变革,在长期来看,没有一个单独的品类比如电话业服务能长期的追踪通胀指数且作为一个价值存储。哪怕是不断的调整指数里各品类的权重也不行,食物和衣物在消费者中的占比自从大萧条以来已经下降了10倍了。 因此,我们应当把通胀对冲视作是对计价单位的最小方差化。 (*)意思是那家电话公司的积分在一段时间内和物价高度正比相关,但因为通讯业的飞速发展,这个服务大幅贬值。我们很难找到一揽子商品能保持稳定,因为世界是在不断变化的,今天昂贵稀缺的商品和服务明天可能就变得不值钱。要找到一个东西对整体物价保持稳定是不太可能都。 Let us assume that there exists an efficient inflation hedge for period for an index methodology, the one in which the index, constantly revised, is the most stable when it is as a numeraire (adjusting for interest and dividend payments). 让我们假设存在一种有效的通胀对冲,满足在周期内实现一个指数的制定。在这个指数是不断调整,使得它作为一个计价单位最大的稳定化(利率和分红的情况都被考虑在内) (*)这里数学化了一个理想计价单位的目标,也就是对通胀的完美对冲,一个方差最小的物价跟踪指数。把这个方差最小化的物价跟踪指数做一个ETF的话,就是完美货币了。 Can one find her or his own hedge? In the parable of the Christ in the temple, Jesus kicked the money changers out of the temple of Jerusalem... Now one wonders why were there were money changers in a place of worship? The answer is that the temple took for currency only the shekel of Tyre, known for its 90% silver content and its ancestral quality control [18] . Simply, there is a free market for fiat currencies, with the most reliable at the time used by third parties. Before the Euro, there were plenty of currencies in Europe. But long term contracts, investments, and commitments were evaluated in deutschmarks or Swiss francs, sometimes the U.S. dollar; drachmas, liras, and pesetas were there mostly for petty expenditures. So what we had was competition between fiat currencies just as with the shekel-of-Tyre! This competition provides for a vastly more convenient monetary store of value. For practitioners of quant finance, the most effective inflation hedge can be a combination of bets which includes the short bond. 那人们能找到他或她的完美对冲物吗? 在基督教的典籍里,耶稣把兑换货币的人赶出耶路撒冷的殿……现在有人好奇为什么在一个礼拜的场所里会出现一个兑换货币的人?答案是那个圣殿只收shekel-of-Tyre这一种货币,以90%的银含量和祖传的质量控制而闻名。 很简单的,在法币世界里有一个自由市场会由第三方使用者选出那个时间段里最靠谱的货币。在欧元出现之前,欧洲有许多许多种货币。但长期以来,投资和商业承诺都是以德国马克或者瑞士法郎来约定的,有时候是美元。德拉克马、里拉、比塞塔是最广泛使用的小额支付的工具。所以法币之间的竞争就好比是这个时代的shekel-of-Tyre! (*)这里的意思是货币自由竞争就解决问题了,不是德国和瑞士的人在做大额的投资协议的时候一样是会选择德国马克或者瑞士法郎。这个是自由竞争选择的结果。 这种竞争提供了一种方便得多的货币价值储存方式。对于量化金融的参与者来说,最有效的通胀对冲可以包含一系列的头寸组合包括一些短期债券。 (*)这里的意思是要创造出一种完美的通胀对冲物使得物价方差最小化是不太现实的,让自由市场发挥作用,让法币们卷起来就可以了。如果懂量化金融,什么短期债券之类的组合大家都可以比赛去追踪最好的通胀对冲,量化金融师们也卷起来。 SOME ADDITIONAL FALLACIES 其他一些谬论 1) Fallacy of libertarianism: The belief that bitcoin is an offshoot of libertarian and Austrian economics has no solid backing — it has the same lack of rigor as the one behind the belief that cryptos represent a "hedge for inflation". Spitznagel [19] had already, in 2017, debunked the notion that bitcoin can be a safe haven (as discussed next) or that the principles of Austrian economics can be invoked in support of cryptocurrencies. 1)对于比特币是自由主义和奥地利学派的分支是完全没有支撑的看法——就好像那些相信加密数字货币能对冲通胀一样不严谨。Spitznagel [文献19]在2017年已经揭穿了比特币是避险天堂的谎言(下文会讨论),也证伪了加密数字货币是被奥地利学派支持的看法。 Comment 4: Law vs. Regulations vs. Rules 评论4:法律VS监管VS规则 Libertarianism is about the rule of law in place of the rule of regulation. It is not about the rule of rules. Libertarianism is fundamentally about the rule of law in place of the rule of regulation. It is not about the rule of rules — mechanistic, automated rules with irreversible outcomes. The real world is fraught with ambiguities and even Napoleonic law (far less mechanistic than crypto rules) cannot keep up — to wit, as a risk management directive, most commercial contracts traditionally prefer forums of dispute resolution to be under the more flexible Anglo Saxon common law (London, NY, Hong Kong) that rules on balance, intent, and symmetry in contracts. This applies of course to quantitative finance products such as complex derivatives contracts for which one needs to minimize the legal risk. Nor is libertarianism about total distrust. 自由主义的基础是用法律来取代监管,而不是用规则来统治——机械的自动化的规则并且产生不可逆转的结果。真实的世界上充斥着模糊性的,哪怕类似拿破仑法典(远没有加密货币机制那么机械)也不能完全跟上。在风险管理大部分合同都是根据普通法的原则(伦敦,纽约,香港)来裁定的。在量化金融领域,诸如复杂的金融衍生品合约双方当让希望最小化法律风险。 2) Fallacy of safe haven, I (protection for financial tail risk): The experience of March 2020, during the market panic upon the onset of the pandemic, when bitcoin dropped farther than the stock market —and subsequently recovered with it upon the massive injection of liquidity is sufficient evidence that it cannot remotely be used as a tail hedge against systemic risk. Furthermore, bitcoin appears to respond to liquidity, exactly like other bubble items. It is also uncertain what could happen should the internet experience a general, or an even a regional, outage — particularly if it takes place during a financial collapse. 2)关于避险天堂的谎言 I(对于尾部风险的保护):从2020年3月的经验来看,当市场陷入恐慌的时候,比特币跌的甚至比股市还要多——以及随后在大规模注入流动性后的复苏,足以证明它根本不能被用作尾部对冲系统性风险。并且,比特币表现出的性质是对流动性的正比反应,就和其他泡沫资产是一模一样的。很难想象当互联网出现大问题的时候,甚至是区域性质的大停电会不会出现大问题——尤其是这个时候恰好发生金融危机。 3) Fallacy of safe haven, II (protection from tyrannical regimes): To many paranoid antigovernment individuals and of others distrustful of institutions, bitcoin has been marketed as a safe haven — also with an open invitation to fall for the fallacy that a volatile electronic token in a public setting is a place for your hidden treasure. By its very nature, bitcoin is open for all to see. The belief in one’s ability to hide one’s assets from the government with a public blockchain easily triangularizable at endpoints, and not just read by the FBI but also by people in their living rooms, requires a certain lack of financial seasoning and statistical understanding — perhaps even a lack of minimal common sense. For instance a Wolfram Research specialist was able to statistically detect and triangularize "anonymous" ransom payments made by Colonial Pipeline on May 8 in 2021 [20] — and it did not take long for the FBI to restore the funds. 3)关于避险天堂的谎言 II(对抗专制暴政):太多过于敏感的反政府主义者和不信任机构的人表示比特币是一个安全的避险天堂,它能帮你隐匿你的财产。 不过就其性质而言,比特币对所有人都是开放的。就政府层面而言其实用技术手段很容易找到一个人,不用FBI出手,所有人在自己家客厅里就可以做到,只需要一些财务和统计学上的知识。举个例子,Wolfram 的一个研究员就能用统计学的办法来把2021年5月8日的赎金的幕后匿名者给抓出来。FBI去追还失款都没用多久。 We can safely assume that government structures and computational power will remain stronger than those of distributed operators who, while distrusting one another, can fall prey to simple hoaxes. In the cyber world, connections are with people one has never met in real life; infiltration by government agents has proven to be extremely easy18. By comparison, the mafia required a Sicilian lineage for "friends of ours" for security clearance. One never knows the degree of governmental surveillance and its real capabilities. The slogan "Escape government tyranny hence bitcoin" is similar to advertisements in the 1960s extolling the health benefits of cigarettes. 我们可以有把握地认为,政府结构和计算能力仍将强于那些相互不信任的分布式运营商。在网络世界里,网上的人们互相其实在现实生活里互相都不认识,政府要渗透可太容易了。相比之下,黑帮要求西西里血统来作为自己人的安全保障。人们永远不知道政府监控的程度及其真正的能力。 「逃离政府暴政,比特币应运而生」的口号就好比1960年的吹捧香烟有益健康的广告。 4) Fallacy of the Agency problem: One might have the impression that, by being distributed, Bitcoin would be democratic and reduce the agency problem perceived to be present among civil servants and bankers. Unfortunately, there appears to be a worse agency problem: a concentration of insiders hoarding what they think will be the world currency, so others would have to go to them later on for supply. They would be cumulatively earning trillions, with many billionaire "Hodlers" — in comparison the "evil civil servants" behind fiat money make, at best, lower middle class wages. This situation represents a wealth transfer to the cartel of early bitcoin accumulators. 4)解决代理人问题的谎言:有人可能听闻过因为去中心化,比特币的世界是更民主公平的且能解决公务员和银行家带来的代理人问题。不过很不幸,现实是比特币世界的代理人问题更严重。一群内部人士集中在囤积他们认为将成为世界货币的东西,所以其他人以后必须去他们那里获取供应。他们能逐渐赚万亿,并且有许多十亿身家的「持币人」,相比之下玩儿的公务员只赚取了比较中等的工资。这种情况代表着财富向早期比特币积累者的卡特尔模式转移。 CONCLUSION 结论 We have presented the attributes of the blockchain in general and bitcoin in particular. Few assets in financial history have been more fragile than bitcoin. 我们已经介绍了区块链的一般属性和比特币的具体属性。在金融历史上,很少有资产比比特币更脆弱。 The customary standard argument is that "bitcoin has its flaws but we are getting a great technology; we will do wonders with the blockchain". No, there is no evidence that we are getting a great technology — unless "great technology" doesn’t mean "useful". And at the time of writing —in spite of all the fanfare — we have done still close to nothing with the blockchain. 通常的标准论点是「比特币虽然有很大的缺陷但它依然是一个伟大的技术创新,我们会期待区块链技术发挥作用」。不,现在没有任何证据表明区块链技术是一项伟大的技术创新——除非伟大的技术创新不意味着有用。并且在写作的当下,尽管大肆吹捧我们始终没有找到区块链的任何真实应用。 So we close with a Damascus joke. One vendor was selling the exact same variety of cucumbers at two different prices. "Why is this one twice the price?", the merchant was asked. "They came on higher quality mules" was the answer. We only judge a technology by how it solves problems, not by what technological attributes it has. 我们用一个大马士革的笑话来结束。一个小贩以两种不同的价格卖着完全相同的黄瓜。「为什么它们的价格不一样?」一个商人问道。答案是:「因为那个贵的是用更贵的驴运过来的」。 我们只以解决了什么问题来判断一个技术的价值,不是以技术性质来判定的。 REFERENCES [1] S. Nakamoto, “Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system,” Tech. Rep., 2008. [2] J. Von Neumann, “Various techniques used in connection with random digits,” Appl. Math Ser, vol. 12, no. 36-38, p. 3, 1951. [3] A. Narayanan and J. Clark, “Bitcoin’s academic pedigree,” Communications of the ACM, vol. 60, no. 12, pp. 36–45, 2017. [4] O. J. Blanchard and M. W. Watson, “Bubbles, rational expectations and financial markets,” NBER working paper, no. w0945, 1982. [5] M. K. Brunnermeier, “Bubbles,” in Banking Crises. Springer, 2016, pp. 28–36. [6] D. Graeber, Debt: The first 5000 years. Penguin UK, 2012. [7] N. N. Taleb, Antifragile: things that gain from disorder. Random House and Penguin, 2012. [8] D. Ricardo, Reply to Mr. Bosanquet’s practical observations on the report of the Bullion Committee. J. Murray, 1811, vol. 10. [9] ——, Proposals for an economical and secure currency, 1816. [10] W. S. Jevons, A Serious Fall in the Value of Gold Ascertained: And Its Social Effects Set Forth. E. Stanford, 1863. [11] F. R. Velde and W. E. Weber, “A model of bimetallism,” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 108, no. 6, pp. 1210–1234, 2000. [12] T. J. Sargent and M. Wallace, “A model of commodity money,” Journal of Monetary Economics, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 163–187, 1983. [13] P. Krugman, M. Obstfeld, and M. Melitz, “International economics: Theory and policy,” 2017. [14] S. A. Ross, Neoclassical finance. Princeton University Press, 2009, vol. 4. [15] L. Campiglio, “Un’analisi comparata del sistema dei prezzi nei venti comuni capoluogo di regione,” Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Sociali, vol. 94, no. 3, pp. 329–377, 1986. [16] M. Nair and R. Emozozo, “Electronic currency in africa: M-pesa as private inside money,” Economic Affairs, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 197–206, 2018. [17] K. Colucci and C. Moiso, “Il fenomeno delle monete virtuali: opportunità per telecom italia,” Notiziaro Tecnico /Telecom Italia, vol. 1, pp. 76–89, 2014. [18] J. Murphy-O’Connor, “Jesus and the money changers (mark 11: 15-17; john 2: 13-17),” Revue Biblique (1946-), pp. 42–55, 2000. [19] M. W. Spitznagel, “Why cryptocurrencies will never be safe havens,” Von Mises Institute, 2017. [20] D. Porechna, “Darkside update: The fbi hacks the hackers?” Wolfram Research, June 2021. (*)我肝太晚了,读后感以后再写,感兴趣的关注追更。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 许哲 点击下载

  • 某校金融学老师贬低劳动价值论、吹捧效用价值论,应该如何评价两者?

    知乎每日精选 · Tue, 19 Jul 2022 18:28:20 +0800

    这个问题下面逐渐吸引了诸多马克思主义爱好者和反对者,感觉早晚发展成“为什么现代西方经济学抛弃了劳动价值论?” 为什么现代西方经济学抛弃了劳动价值论? 作为马克思主义爱好者、西方经济学学生,我很反感讨论只围绕马克思、恩格斯的原著展开。学界公认(常识也是如此)《资本论》是未完成的杰作,很多论证留给了后续的马克思主义学者。离开他们的研究只抠字眼式地讨论马恩原典未免过于形而上。 指责劳动价值论不能和效用价值论对比也未免过于“圈地自萌”。学术概念都是在对比中澄清的,言必称xx概念不能和xx概念对比毫无意义,像是小圈子里的自说自话。只有碰撞、对话才能得到更清晰的认知。 另外,对于马克思主义的一切理论都抱有成见、认为应该“扫进垃圾堆”,是无助于理解经济运行规律的。要知道无论中外的哪本《经济思想史》教材都会给马克思单独列一章,这足以说明其对现代经济的重要影响,也说明理解马克思的重要性。如果认为马克思的什么理论错了,就说出自己的逻辑,上来就给一个价值判断只能表达立场,不能表达观点。 先说怎么看待。感觉遇到这个问题的大多数是本科生,因为经济学的一套理论和高中时政治课的《经济生活》教材有太大的区别,于是感到很迷茫。十二年的初等教育已经塑造了一个思维体系,忽然转换比较艰难,最起码不会一开始就接受全新的思考方法。从问题描述看,题主很不能接受效用价值论(用了“吹捧”这个贬义词),如果你想反对,那么多看看论文,试着自己写篇文章去反驳老师的观点。无论最后你发现你被说服了还是真的反驳成功了,这都是一次很好的思维锻炼。 另外,我想题主只是在讨论价值来自于哪里,那就不必谈论什么如果没有xx价值论,xxx理论就不复存在。诚然,劳动/效用价值论是很多理论的构建根基,但这不是劳动/效用价值论不能被反驳的理由,这样去论证反而本末倒置了。对于经济学的学生或是学者来说,梳理清楚两个概念的来源、找到异同点,才是更好的理解方式。 再来谈效用价值论和劳动价值论。 前面的回答恰好说明了经济学文科生太少,居然都混淆了价格和价值…… 首先,效用价值论并非来自劳动价值论。 效用这一概念来自功利主义(或者追溯到古希腊的享乐主义),人们追求可以让自己快乐的东西,回避会产生痛苦的东西,所有的个人都在追求总幸福最大化。根据边沁最初的定义,“所谓效用就是按照有利于扩大或减少当事者的幸福,或者换言之,按照有利于促进或阻碍那些幸福,来赞成或反对任何行动的原理。”而劳动被认为是“痛苦的”,因此需要“补偿”。最早的效用价值理论可以溯源到巴本,他认为一切物品的价值都来自它们的效用;无用之物,便无价值;物品效用在于满足需求;一切物品能满足人类天生的肉体和精神欲望,才成为有用的东西,从而才有价值。此外,巴本早于亚当·斯密(亚当·斯密也持劳动价值论),边沁早于马克思,所以效用价值论来自劳动价值论是不可能的。 Arrow 和 Debreu(1954)的研究也不能说明效用价值论来自劳动价值论。原文假设,“For labor services, the amount supplied may be regarded as the negative of the rate of 'consumption', so that X_hi <= 0 if h denotes a labor service.”这就是因为劳动具有负效用,被认为是痛苦的。而假设VII只是讨论了一个严格限制下的特殊情况,即“if no restriction is imposed on the amount (consumed) of some one type of "productive" labor, then it is possible to increase the output of at least one "desired" commodity (a commodity in D) without decreasing the output or increasing the input of any commodity other than the type of productive labor under consideration.” 劳动价值论的核心观点在于,商品有价值(或称交换价值)和使用价值,价值来自正常社会生产条件下、社会平均的劳动熟练程度和劳动强度下,生产该商品所需的社会必要劳动时间,而部分学者认为使用价值与效用对应。供给和需求不决定价值而决定价格,价格是围绕价值波动的,不一定与价值相等。而马克思的劳动价值论最大的特征在于,除了劳动,其他所有要素都不能创造价值,土地、资本创造的价值都是错觉。这一论述反驳了萨伊的要素价值论,即反驳了将劳动与物质生产要素等同,视作一种普通的生产投入要素,只需支付工资就能得到。 其次,由于题主上的是金融学,想必系统学习过了效应价值,前面大多数回答也解释了效用价值有益处的地方。这里我就只介绍马克思主义经济学家们如何“捍卫”劳动价值论。 一部分学者直接批判了效用价值论及其背后的逻辑。国内学者卫兴华、郑治国、丁堡骏等学者对西方经济学的“效用价值论”作出了批判性的审视,指出了这一理论的庸俗性。主要的问题有两个方面:其一,效用比较到底是定性标准,还是定量标准?在比较水与钻石的“总效用”时,“边际效用论”使用的是“定性”标准,而不是“定量”标准———也就是以满足人类需要的“重要性”来衡量水和钻石的“总效用”。但在比较水与钻石的“边际效用”时,“边际效用论”使用的却是“定量”标准,而不再是“定性”标准———也就是以物品数量的多少,来衡量水与钻石的“边际效用”。其二,不同物品的效用,在数量上如何比较?同种物品的效用,在“数量”上固然可以比较。但是,不同种类的物品,其效用在“数量”上如何进行比较?(这个问题,马克思有过客观的分析。对于“一夸特小麦=x量鞋油”的交换等式,马克思指出:这里的数量不是“效用”的数量,而是“劳动”的数量。) 另有一部分学者通过解决价格和价值的一致性,从而间接“捍卫”劳动价值论,即证明价格和价值的关系以佐证劳动价值论。价格与价值在数量上的不一致最早来自“庞巴维克质疑”(近年来,国内坚持这一质疑主要是晏智杰教授),面对这种质疑,很多马克思主义经济学家做了相关的“修补”。 一种方法是,抽象掉单个商品的独特的满足人们需要的有用性,得到“抽象的使用价值”这一概念,将其定义为任何商品都具有的满足人们需要的有用性。许多抽象使用价值论者将使用价值作为商品的第一属性,作为研究商品交换和生产的基本范畴,而价值则成为使用价值的附庸(甚至完全可以取消)。这一研究范式的转化起源于对使用价值属性的辨析,并通过全面吸收效用价值论的基本论点来实现。批判者认为,这只是借用了马克思理论体系的外衣,其内含与西方经济学是一致的,也是对马克思主义经济学的颠覆。 一种方法是,通过研究转形问题来解决这一差异,而转形问题的核心是“证明价值决定生产价格”。在转形问题的讨论中,可以按照对待劳动力商品的不同态度,分为A体系和B体系。其中A体系假设工人获得的是给定的实物形态的工资品,这一组商品的数量和构成是外生给定的,在价值和生产价格体系中相同。B体系则放弃了给定的实物工资假设,将工人获得的工资视为社会净产品价值的一部分。B体系的一个分支“新解释”派认为,劳动力商品的再生产并不属于典型的资本再生产,B体系的另一个分支“平均利润率不变”派认为,平均利润率在价值和生产价格体系下是相等的。 一种方法是,对劳动时间进行货币表达(“劳动时间的货币表达”,MELT)。他们提出, 可以在强调货币和劳动时间关系的基础上重建马克思的劳动价值论。认为这是一种可操作的和可以在任何实际经济中进行测量的清晰的劳动时间货币表述方法。还有学者指出,“市场需求对于劳动价值的量化有着极为重要的作用。”“在一个部门中, 单个商品生产者生产的商品的价值量可以用社会必要价值量进行折算, 因此也是可以计算的。” 还有一种观点是,所有对价值数量的计算都毫无必要。马克思明确指出过,“每一个商品不管你怎样颠来倒去, 它作为价值物总是不可捉摸的。但是如果我们记住, 商品只有作为同一的社会单位即人类劳动的表现才具有价值对象性, 因而它们的价值对象性纯粹是社会的, 那末不用说, 价值对象性只能在商品同商品的社会关系中表现出来。”“对人类生活形式的思索,……是从事后开始的, 就是说, 是从发展过程的完成的结果开始的。……因此, 只有商品价格的分析才导致价值量的决定, 只有商品共同的货币表现才导致商品的价值性质的确定。”因此,劳动价值论的要义并不在于求解 “相对价值量”的数量, 而是在于揭示隐藏在 “相对价值量”背后的价值的本质规定性。这种观点进一步从哲学的角度理解,认为 只有 “形式”能够被量化, 因为量化离不开形式, 承载量化并展现量化的, 只能是某种 “形式”,就像西方经济学中价格之于效用是一种形式。 再来补充一些西方经济学的研究,看看经济学的最新进展如何理解效用价值论。 效用有下面的性质: 然而,行为经济学、心理学的实验结果表明,这两条性质都被挑战了,换言之,理性人假设可能是不存在的(或者说,也需要假设前提)。具体来说,就是在数学期望大致相当的两个博弈中,被试者往往选择概率高而损益值小的博弈,但是会将概率低而损益值大的博弈以更高的价格出售,这就表明人们在选择与定价中表现出的偏好不一致(Lichtenstein 和 Slovic,1971;Pommerlme,1982; Reilly,1982)。【行为经济学还呈现了很多非理性现象,能够解释生活中的很多事件。】 另一个关于劳动价值论和效用价值论在经济学内部的有趣争论是“剑桥资本争论”。知乎上已有大佬做了详细的阐述,在此不赘述。 剑桥资本争论(“资本”概念争论)是什么?如何理解论战双方的观点? 参考文献 [1]斯坦利·L.布鲁, 兰迪·R.格兰特著, 邸晓燕. 经济思想史 (第七版)[M].经济思想史, (第七版). 北京大学出版社, 2008. [2]Arrow K J, Debreu G. Existence of an equilibrium for a competitive economy[J]. Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society, 1954: 265-290. [3]赵磊.“效用价值论”批判——从“效用价值”的逻辑出发[J].当代经济研究,2019(04):45-54+113. [4]邓肯·弗里,高伟,张苏.劳动价值论的最新发展[J].政治经济学评论,2008(01):18-41. [5]赵磊.“不能量化”证伪了劳动价值论吗?[J].政治经济学评论,2017,8(04):3-17. [6]陈旸.从A体系到B体系:转形问题百年综述[J].清华政治经济学报,2014,2(01):53-84. [7]荣兆梓.转形理论的现代表达及转形问题的最终解决评萨缪尔森的“奥卡姆剃刀”[J].经济学动态,2009,(10):45-51. [8]Rabin M. Psychology and economics[J]. Journal of economic literature, 1998, 36(1): 11-46. 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 芃芃其麦 点击下载 169 个回答,查看全部。 人类如何评价欧美经济学家一味否定马克思劳动价值论,却未能由边际效用价值论自然而然提出边际劳动价值论? 本人从数个角度证伪老马的剩余价值理论(见问题补充)。三观很正的你,如何反驳?

  • 如何评价漫画家高桥和希?

    知乎每日精选 · Tue, 19 Jul 2022 16:37:46 +0800

    是少有的能打穿ACG的作者。 在我喜欢的作者里也是最天然、绿色、人畜无害的一个,不爱搞事。 还是先谢谢邀请我回答问题的知友,这个邀请我很想当成一个月前收到的那样来写回答,但是也不可能了,还是当作纪念吧。几年前就买了全套的游戏王漫画,他是我最喜欢的两个漫画家之一(另一个当然是宫崎骏)。肯定会有人觉得,鉴于意外溺水的事实,说他不爱搞事不对啊,这是个60岁还能跑去潜水的人啊。但是我讲真的,他作为作者是很安静的,基本只会发发画作,搞搞设定,对粉丝们说谢谢。漫画完结多年还不断精进画技,能达成“6分钟画一张酷帅男主”成就。 解释一下,我喜欢不少作者,创作小说动漫的都有,他们的作风多种多样: 有的会对不喜欢的作品直接开喷,属于是会让萌新粉丝看了一脸懵的。如宫崎骏认为指环王电影思维回路太简单;又如托尔金对自己的作品插画的要求是:“不是迪士尼的东西,或受其影响的风格(我衷心厌恶他们的所有作品)。” 还有的对创作随心而行,随便写死主角然后被从亲妈到维多利亚女王陛下的各路人马无限吐槽,扛十年之后又改主意,重新把主角写活,如柯南·道尔。 也还有的喜欢在作品里写死许许多多角色,并且拒绝向读者妥协,反而声称“你要享受这个过程”,如田中芳树,在江湖留下“皆杀的田中”的传说,于是喜提“老贼”称号。 更有的早年十分勤勉努力,却因为作品意外爆火成为杂志台柱,于是无限拖戏,如青山刚昌,再加上年纪大了、生病,体力确实不济,近几年更是出现一年52周但是他的周更漫画只更16话这样的事情,也喜提“老贼”称号。 甚至有的作者已经完结自己爆火的作品,但莫名其妙在政治问题上引出一堆争议,如JK罗琳,被认为是白左和terf二象性,作为粉丝,我刷新闻的时候偶尔觉得需要有个大心脏。 当然,即使如此,我还是非常喜欢这些作者和他们的作品,并且习惯了作者们的这些个性,觉得很可爱。比如宫崎骏反复宣布退休复出,我的想法是老爷子食言喜闻乐见;再比如托尔金说学生考卷有一页全空白“太好了,什么都不用读”,然后在卷子上写小说开头,也超有趣。 高桥和希就很安静,一不喷作品,二不虐读者,三不拖更新,四不说政治,唯一一次倡议大家去投票还很快就道歉,说让角色有政治表达不好。他这么低调,我都认为不去给他留言比较好,怕打扰他——现在觉得早知道这样还不如见天儿去推和ins敲他画画,画点番外也是好的。 YGO的卡牌卖得很多,现在已经把整个IP提升到全球21位,他的漫画也卖出了4000万册,维基统计的赚钱数目是$964million,将近10亿美刀的数量级。并且动画一直有在连载。gx和5ds也是他亲自参与做设定,看起来也都很好。漫画起家然后在动画和游戏方面都非常成功,字面意义上打穿ACG,即使有大公司助力,也很少有人做到这种事。 其实我见过有人说,高桥也只有一部漫画做到这种程度,其它的作品也没有办法再现这样的能量。当然,就事实来说也没错。但我还是认为,有些作品能成为现象级的名作,是特定的作者的灵感结晶,和作者的经历极其相关,妙手偶得也须是他的手。DM动画的改编有很多地方很成功,但其中被很多人认为最经典的一场暗游戏VS海马社长的战斗城市半决赛,其整个后半部分都跟原作几乎一样。动画是让社长开局就发动了一张永续魔法卡,从此这场比赛的所有盖卡魔法卡都成了速攻,其实这只是为了跟原作战斗城市的规则“盖卡的魔法卡都可以随时发动”相合而已。可见原作者编故事的功力还是非常强的。 虽然当时OCG很流行,但是连载时却没多少那个意识,我只是在想怎么画好登场人物。卡片说到底只是工具,我认为塑造好人物然后让读者对故事产生兴趣,才是对作品最重要的事情。 ——其实他设计卡牌的工作也做得不错,据他自己回忆可能设计了有上千张卡牌。 我站在读者视角,觉得高桥做得很好的一点是,他作为作者对作品给出了恰到好处的说明,又给读者留解读空间。从他的一些访问资料可以了解他的思路。 2007年的时候游戏王原作漫画出了文库版,2021年台湾东立出了首刷书盒版。 这套书把原本38卷的单行本重新编排成了22卷。选22这个数字是因为塔罗牌的大阿尔卡纳有22张牌,而塔罗牌和埃及文化又有关。同时这个版本有把原作的角色也编成塔罗牌,CoZo君负责了概念设计工作,每一卷都对人物用解读塔罗牌的形式解读。在有的采访视频里,高桥拿在手上的新书就是这个文库版,亲手绘制了封面,据他说还修了一些图。 这是解释到“皇帝”牌的第一页,实际一共有4页,台版翻译是这样的: 游戏王塔罗牌4 皇帝 戴冠的少年 年轻的“皇帝”坐在黄金的王座上。他那坚定的眼神直视着正前方。左右扶手上的狮子的脸,象征他王者的身份。实际上,陈列在开罗考古学博物馆中的图坦卡蒙王座,椅子的四只脚都做成狮子的脚,霸气十足。 “暗游戏”是继承父亲意志,保护人民的伟大王者。虽然是个少年,却被要求当个守护社稷的强势国王。他手脚戴的黄金首饰,显示他是“战斗的王者”。站在全军的最前方,勇敢雄伟的模样,常常成为壁画或雕刻的题材。对古埃及人民来说,王是伟大的战士。在古代的莎草纸文书中,记载王者头上如发带般的金冠散发着强烈光芒,歼灭敌人的场面。简直就是借助太阳之力扫荡敌人,所向无敌的王。 王座的柱头上,太阳圆盘闪闪发亮。自古以来,埃及王被当成太阳神。人们深信如果埃及王倒下,太阳之力也会衰退,黑暗和混沌将会支配世界。太阳神是最受欢迎的神明。历代的法老王都喜欢自称为“太阳神之子”。 说到太阳神,就联想到暗游戏手上“三幻神卡”其中一张的神名,把力量强大的太阳神也作为卡片来战斗的暗游戏……他的力量到底来自哪里? 阿布辛贝大神殿每年只在特定的2天,分别于春季和秋季,会被观光客挤得水泄不通。因为只有在那2天,阳光会照到位于神殿最里面、不见天日的拉美西斯二世雕像。到底为什么只有那2天,才会发生这种情形呢? 王家之谷的王墓墓室里,柱子、门扉,甚至是天花板,狭窄的墓室中都画满了色彩鲜艳的图画。其中也有像漫画般明确分格的部分,令人相当吃惊。这部分画的是太阳神的长篇故事,埃及的国王们想尽办法,希望死后也成为太阳神。 埃及神话中最古老的神是名为亚图姆的太阳神。创造神亚图姆在原始之丘“奔奔石”上接二连三地生出神明。据说祂站在圣石之上,用太阳光照遍所有的国土。 被喻为金字塔原型的这个“奔奔石”,是四角锥形,令人联想到游戏的千年积木。当时的神官似乎也戴着相同形状的坠子。那种坠子好像是由香木的树脂和没药混合而成,而没药(myrrh)也是木乃伊mummy的语源,用于葬礼中,据说有让灵魂离开死者身体的力量。 将千年积木完成的时候,暗游戏就会离开表游戏的身体而出现,这好像也跟千年积木有什么关系。从形状来推测,千年积木一定还隐藏着意义深远的秘密。 就如同在我们日本,古时候禁止称呼地位高贵的人的本名,要避“名讳”一样,在古埃及,王的名字也是不公开的。这个观念的基础建立在“知道一个人的本名,就能自由支配那个人”这种类似魔术的想法。 另外,就跟日本的“言灵”一样,在古埃及,人们也认为话语中有灵寄宿。所以,据说位高权重的人不太讲话,只在有感应的时候才谨慎地开口。大概是因为这样,言语才成为魔术的泉源。 在这篇连载中,每回都登场的女神伊西斯,曾经想把太阳神的名字,给予心爱的儿子荷鲁斯。知道名字力量的祂,运用与生俱来的知识,想方设法问到了太阳神真正的名字,把太阳神的名字“拉”和力量给予爱子荷鲁斯。 “寻找名字”这种英雄奇幻的王道,其实是始于此。就连创造神亚图姆的名字,也曾经差一点被太阳神吸收而消失,所以神明不能掉以轻心。后来两人合体,变成亚图姆·拉,勉强留下名字。但伊西斯比太阳神更高明,真是为母则强…… 把焦点转到人类世界,我们观察到漫长的历史中,也有法老王被排除在“王名表”之外。讽刺的是,在现代大名鼎鼎的法老王图坦卡蒙的名字,本来也被永久抹杀,没人知道这件事,直到很晚才被发现。1922年,霍华德·卡特宣布了这个历史大发现,如果没有他,图坦卡蒙大概至今仍是个谜样的王。 大人的社会是丝毫不容许天真或者妥协的严苛世界。就算王的年纪很轻,也必须维持秩序,发挥强大的指导力。在一旁辅佐的神官团虽然很有能力,但多少有难以驾驭的特性。为了管理神官,就算他们年纪较长,王还是要明确地表达意见。就算有人蛮横行事,也要巧妙地控制他们。出乎意料的协助者,尤其是年长的男性,大概会伸出援手。要仔细地巡视自己的王国,冷静地在现状中开拓新境界。个性有点男孩子气,所以恋爱方面也要试着主动积极,只是皇帝像游戏一样不善于表达情感,这是缺点。 “我要战到最后!”这种不屈的人=暗游戏“皇帝”,如果卡片是逆位,表示强势的部分往往过度外显。另外,一旦失去自信,就会变得退缩。“皇帝”这张卡片代表的是不感情用事,靠自己的意志创造事物。不要被别人的意见迷惑。要对达成目的有高度的执行力,靠着坚强的意志一直往前迈进。 这段内容说出了暗游戏这个人物的几个关键点: 继承父亲意志,保护人民的伟大王者(那些看不出来这个定位的解读就可以不看了); 站在全军最前方战斗的战士(不是把别人送上战场但自己只会躲在安全地方的低水平政客); 可以使用神的力量(他的魔力来自于神); 千年积木和创世神话有关,隐藏着意义深远的力量(漫画交代是团结之力); 名字很重要,寻找名字的故事套路来自于古老的神话; 被要求有领袖气质,但他本人也有少年心性。 这些设定不仅仅是设定,故事也是这么画的。这个角色不仅是能打牌,也有着历史与神话的内涵,作为文学人物也是非常出彩的。他是被选中的法老王,和其他的法老王不一样,可以同时使用三幻神的力量。这么大的魔力毫无疑问来自于神。 但是这么强大为什么三千年前赢不下佐克,原本我以为是个不太好解释的问题,但高桥解释得顺理成章——亚图姆跟巴库拉对打的时候总分心去想着保护民众,影响思考战术。 本来这个反作用力发召雷弹的方法挺好的,还把精灵兽拽上了天,但是他根本的想法是“这样巴库拉就没办法攻击城市了”。我应该说他一边担心城市的民众一边还能想到方法跟精灵兽打架真聪明么?但问题是这一战他始终是这个思路,把翼神龙忘得一干二净。以后也再没养回力气招出三神。 所以就是说神给他这么大的魔力,又给他慈爱的父亲、至尊的身份,把他打造成一个好君主,是要他给百姓挡刀,给国家当祭品。 要他付出生命、身体、记忆、名字,再灵魂被关在积木里三千年。 跟历史上的玛丽王后是相反的人,却比玛丽王后还惨:他还那么年轻就已经知道,命运送来的所有的礼物,都已经暗中标好了价格。 我至今都觉得,一方面,这作者真敢画;另一方面,咱就是说,少年漫画哪用画到这份上呢? 少年漫画就画抖S男主打牌锤罪犯就好了嘛,没有必要让人想到,如果当君主的人仁爱贤明,结果还是很惨,那就是君主制不行。 君主再强也是一个人,还是团结力量大,于是全作从头到尾歌颂友情,画男主极其重视朋友。然而君主是不可以有朋友的。用田中芳树在银英里表达的来说,民主主义才是交对等朋友的制度,君主只能有臣下。 但是高桥和希画的就是他全都要,解决方案就是朋友们自己变强,特别是最弱小最让暗游戏担心的aibo要从一个虽然有勇气但是没有自我的人,变得自信自立自强。 不过说起来搞笑,在漫画里承担从负面激励小表的任务的有两回都是暗貘良,四舍五入就是大邪神佐克。 大邪神佐克人生导师语录一:不要天真了,这是你的战斗。 大邪神佐克人生导师语录二:守护这些重要的东西不是你的使命吗? 结果在埃及篇换来小表一顿爆锤。暗游戏是不可能说出这些话的,他虽然一开始就超自信,但本质跟小表一样利他、自制、无欲,只是程度有差别,不会指责朋友。PS:伊西斯比他俩还更加利他、自制、无欲。 还是文库版,高桥自己给角色们用数轴的形式做了定位。 并且这样解释: 这个单纯是作者在下构思的个性分布图。各位对角色的观感或许各有不同,按照自己的感觉来分析看看,或许也很有趣。 对照图表来看,我漫画中登场的反派,都很在乎自己,沉溺于执着之中,而且欲望强烈,有时还会妄想。 这样的特质,出乎意料地跟我们人类很相似。 高桥认为我们读者自己的列表可能也会很有趣,还说我们人类的特质在漫画里其实比较接近于反面角色们,而不是正面角色们。我觉得他还是挺实在的,作为人类我就承认自己没那么善良,有些高尚的道德其实是神性,而有些道德在我看来其实用AI更容易实现,哲学问题和道德问题落到工程实践就难办多了。 比如说,假设我是个人工智能算法设计人员,正在搞自动驾驶汽车。现在有个情况是路上突然冲出两个小孩,为了不撞到他们,算法只能让车子紧急变道,开到逆行线甚至路肩上去。然而逆行线上此时也有辆大车,或者路肩上有个大树,相撞就会有八成以上概率把紧急变道的车的车主撞死。假设逆行车足够结实所以它的乘员无生命危险。那么,算法该选择撞小孩还是撞车主? 由于是算法做的决定,假设不考虑研发人员和车主需要负的法律责任,赔小孩或逆行车车主的钱也赔得起,同时不考虑小孩子是不是熊孩子之类的,这就是电车难题了,成为两个小孩和车主怎么选的问题。 像这种问题,可能有非常多的人认为,既然车主还有两成几率可以活下来,那么算法应该选择不撞小孩。但是如果我是算法设计人员,落到工程实际就得考虑,真的把汽车的自动驾驶系统设计成利他主义,车还卖得出去吗? 如果问各路买家,即使你八成活不下来它也会选择把你舍掉,那你愿不愿意买这么一辆利他的车?恐怕大部分人都会表示不愿意。即使有少数人愿意为了两个陌生的小孩牺牲自己,但如果他们考虑到车买到手不一定只有他乘坐,还有爱人、孩子来坐,他恐怕也会犹豫了。他还会想到,家人也不想失去他,所以牺牲自己这种选择也要考虑,那就更不会买了。 我们这个世界现在在跑的车基本都是利己的,安全带、安全气囊都是有利于车里的人的措施,交通规则理论上是利所有人,也不是只利他。由于专业的关系,我有办法把算法设计成绝对利他,计算机会忠实执行指令,就像一个终生愿意为他人牺牲自己的人,但这种抽象的AI并不是我想要的。 而现实生活中处理问题也根本不可能不考虑法律责任、赔偿金等等的问题。所以海马社长的AI就是复制不出一个原本的暗游戏。暗游戏是人,同时兼具着神性,但就是没有多少AI属性(可能除了脑子挺快)。他会救民众,会为了不伤害城之内、表貘良宁可牺牲自己,也会救害过他的木马和表马利克,完全想不到牺牲仆人;但是他考虑到爷爷、木马和静香,认为输掉会失去一切的时候,就会撞拦路的海马,对于会伤害aibo的潘多拉也不怎么想救,该收拾犯罪分子的时候就更不客气了。要救的是谁,要怎么救,他都有自己的想法,不是个简单的算法,非常有意思。然后在表游戏觉得自己的选择害“另一个我”的努力全部白给的时候,暗游戏在认为是aibo帮他承担了输牌导致救不了人的心理压力。作品能多角度呈现对一个问题的思考也是很有水平的。 暗游戏的AI也没办法像本人那样凭打牌的各种创意和思考吸引社长。暗游戏让卡牌上的怪兽变成实体,启发了社长;抽到黑暗大法师,讲团结的力量;指出社长需要从刚三郎的阴影里走出来才能赢。这一路上无论是游戏设计的创意还是找回给孩子们造乐园的初心,都是暗游戏在和社长对话。海马在意暗游戏,一直想打赢他,也一直在帮他。 暗游戏要收天空龙,海马社长给出主意; 暗游戏要打俩假面,海马社长来双人战; 暗游戏要找城之内,海马社长叫直升机; 暗游戏要战马利克,海马社长送魔法卡。 战斗城市一共才两天的时间,社长对暗游戏花式不重样地帮忙。剧场版里他跟AI暗游戏对战,选择的地点居然是个教堂。AI毫无疑问是科技产物,但教堂是个宗教场所,末了社长还说AI终究只是个幻影。我每次看到这里都觉得,王样你赶紧出来跟社长打一局,不然他都信神学不信科学啦。 社长在冥界打赢了没有,剧场版没有画,我的理解,这可能是作者允许我们有自己的想象空间。你可以认为社长打赢了,也可以认为还是亚图姆打赢。在两个人都已经没有心理负担之后,这是一场在朋友面前证明自己的决斗,只要打出自己的水平就是好的。包括战斗城市之后暗游戏和城之内的对决,高桥是这么说的: 如果友情成立在双方互相肯定、各自独立的基础上,那么,在战斗城市寻找真正的决斗者,暗游戏跟城之内在最后同场较劲的场景,才是他们之间,友情真正成立的瞬间。 其实《游戏王》最终话的内容有别的版本。 在另外一个版本,(表)游戏迈步前行,而战斗城市的暗游戏跟城之内决斗。 在我心中的构想是——暗游戏跟城之内决斗,输赢的结果亦已定案,但在这里我就不说出来了。 那场决斗,双方打得难分难舍,平分秋色,暗游戏在最后一回合用真红眼黑龙发动攻击。 那个瞬间,城之内在场上使用“时间魔术师”,做最后的赌注,两人的场上有时间魔法的效果,暗游戏和城之内在那里看到的是超越了决斗、闪闪发亮的画面。最后一格是微微一笑的暗游戏之特写。 可是《游戏王》是以少年·武藤游戏和他心里的另一个游戏作为主角的故事,因此,我觉得现在这个结局比较好。 既然是时间魔术师决胜负,那么城之内就有可能赢。原作漫画其实没有画过暗游戏和城之内的完整决斗,决斗王国的决战是动画组编的,漫画里这俩人觉得自己人没必要打;码头的一战,暗游戏不愿意打,其实前期的暗游戏整个就不太懂得怎么跟朋友决斗,于是打到一半小表接手;战斗城市最后又没画出来,结果暗游戏和城之内在原作里只有王国篇那场打迷宫兄弟的合作。而且,原作里在决斗王国给城之内星星、给他奖金的都是暗游戏,战斗城市帮他抢真红眼黑龙的又是暗游戏,这俩人的相处模式更接近单方面的付出,所以城之内这么想成为真正的决斗者。我的理解,高桥说的两个人最后同场较劲才是友情成立的瞬间,可能是说此时的城之内终于不是单方面被暗游戏给予巨大恩惠的角色了。假设最后确实是城之内赢的话,那么原作就会达成一个效果:最后一刻暗游戏看着两个朋友aibo和城之内都成长到这么强,没有失落反而笑得很开心。 剧场版倒是实现了“最后一格是微微一笑的暗游戏之特写”。 意思就是如果朋友们翅膀硬了,暗游戏会很欣赏这对美丽的翅膀。我觉得这很不容易。 “任何人都能对朋友的不幸感到同情,但要消受一个春风得意的朋友,则需要非常优良的天性。”——王尔德 但是高桥没有画出来谁赢,我说了也不算,只能发点想法了。 说到底,我觉得暗游戏能不能赢朋友不重要,他能赢大邪神就行。小表海马城之内坚决挑战他是挑战国王,这叫勇敢,但他要是每天合计怎么打赢朋友就不像个样子了。就像亚历山大大帝能不能打赢赫菲斯提翁不重要,能打赢大流士三世就行。 有些作者为了给读者留评价空间,会极少解释他们的作品是如何创作的,读者们的解释南辕北辙,但作者没有给过范围,基本的问题就无法达成一致。举个例子,托尔金的指环王,非常多的读者说他隐喻二战,如果不是他本人说过不喜欢搞这种讽刺,读者肯定会浪费很多时间。托爷的文学水平超出一般读者的水准,大部分接受“作者在暗示现实”的阅读理解教育的普通读者其实想象不到他在意的是神话本身,得是接受过很专业的文学训练的人才会知道文学的内核是神话,但即使接受过这种训练,如果作者自己不说的话,一般读者也很难说影射现实是错的。所以我还是认为,作者自己对作品给出一个大致的解读范围是必要的。 其实评价一个漫画作者应该多分析他的画本身的,但是这个内容太多了,无可能在一篇文之内写完,我还是只挑最容易写的角度了。 最后再写一点关于黑暗游戏的想法。这个系列特别多黑暗游戏嘛。不知道我是不是一个人,我始终认为黑暗游戏其实就不是游戏。如果你问我,有一种活动,事关命运,给参与者的精神压力极大,精神力弱的甚至可能在活动进行中晕倒,且严格禁止作弊,否则后果非常严重,那么这是什么活动? 我大概会答,这是中国高考。毕竟,打游戏事关命运还需要好大的精神力,作弊后果可严重了啥的,没听说过。但是高考就非常符合这个描述。 对我个人来说,那还有像之前看过的回答里说的,读博期间“在精神错乱边缘挣扎的经历”,只是人家说大部分名校的如此,我渣水平所以不是名校的也如此,临毕业最后两年真是至暗时刻。 让人内牛满面的是暗游戏只对犯罪分子之类的人玩黑暗游戏,动画里自己朋友被人家要求玩这个他也会觉得太危险了。可是我从小到大都在玩这种游戏,所以非常能够理解精神力量和自信是如此重要的东西。 漫画家果然都是瑰宝啊,感谢他们的创作。 (这回答写多了些,但不打算改了,纪念高桥老师,也感谢我喜欢的其他作家们,望还在世的作家们继续欢乐搞事,已经去另一个世界的作家们开心游玩。) 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 玛莉蓓尔 点击下载 12 个回答,查看全部。 为什么漫画家手冢治虫可以称为动漫之神呢? 日本的漫画家可以获得多少薪资?

  • 高级宏观经济学怎么学?

    知乎每日精选 · Tue, 19 Jul 2022 14:32:29 +0800

    对这个问题分享一点自己的经验。 我在国内本科和硕士阶段学过几轮高级宏观经济学,什么Ramsey model, dynamic programming, contraction mapping, OLG, 学过好几遍,模型推导背的很麻利,但是始终觉得自己对宏观经济学一知半解,非常别扭。 去美国念phd,第一年的宏观经济学四个教授密集教了一个学期,才豁然开朗。phd期间学的宏观和我之前学的最大区别是,是否建立起了“宏观经济是一个系统“的概念。 一个宏观模型通常有两部分:decision problem和market equilibrium。第一部分decision problem相对直接,就是每一个agent做最优化,optimality condition就是marginal benefit = marginal cost。第二部分就是市场要出清,以及perceived law of motion should be consistent with actual law of motion。第二部分建立了宏观经济作为一个“系统”的存在,也是模型求解和用于解释现象的关键。在phd以前的学习中,我总是把精力花在理解decision problem上,而忽略了理解market equilibrium condition (在基础模型中通常以market clearing condition形式存在)。 为什么会这样呢?因为在phd以前的学习中,老师都是教我们列出equilibrium condition,然后要么在特殊情况下手动求解,要么做一些简单的数值解。equilibrium condition在逻辑上是并行的,所以一个模型就是一个差分方程组 - 解方程组的时候我们不会去在意哪个方程在前哪个在后。 宏观模型不是这样的。在这里要强调Minnesota学派对宏观模型的表述。这一派的经济学家对模型的表述要求十分严格乃至死板,必须清晰地定义individual state variable, aggregate state variable,写出decision problem的optimality condition,写出individual state和aggregate state 或者asset price law of motion consistency的条件以及market clearing。phd期间我们宏观的第一个quarter就只学了一件事,如何定义均衡。老师出题就是出各种各样的模型变体让我们定义均衡,考试也就考这些。那一部分的考试没有什么人是不会做的,但也没有什么人是能拿满分的,因为要满足所有的表述都精确实在太难了。当时学的时候我是蛮反感的,觉得把大好青春浪费在翻来覆去定义均衡上,对宏观经济的理解毫无寸进。后来做宏观research,听seminar,见了很多越来越复杂的模型,才深刻体会了这样训练的意义和价值,了解了什么叫磨刀不误砍柴工。在一个复杂的模型里,变量之间的逻辑关系千头万绪,抓住定义均衡的几个步骤,宏观模型就变得清晰明了了。当然啦,能不能最后解得出来这个要看各人的功力,但至少理解别人的paper可以事半功倍。我在写paper的时候,导师强调必须要清晰准确地定义均衡。有一次我present完自己的paper,就被批评为什么没有一页slides定义了均衡,吓得我赶紧补上。 我会推荐这个世界上最好的宏观经济学教材, by Dirk Krueger https://perhuaman.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/macrotheory-dirk-krueger.pdf 链接上是多年前的一个版本。后来他的讲义扩展成了两门课的教材,第一门课是一年级的宏观基础,第二门课讲heterogeneous agent model。教材的2, 3, 6章就是围绕着定义均衡展开的,或者换句话说,这部分内容的核心是教我们怎么定义均衡,而不是告诉我们rbc/growth模型是怎么回事。第二章还讲了risk sharing,这是多数一年级宏观课不教的,但十分重要。 这本教材的适用对象,是希望系统学习宏观经济学,理解宏观经济学前沿文献,乃至从事宏观经济学研究的朋友们。它只能帮我们打一个理解宏观经济模型的坚实基础,往后的旅程,还得各随因缘。如果你想快速了解宏观经济学对一些具体的宏观经济问题有什么见解,那么它不适合你。这本教材的精彩在于它的“方法论”性质,而具体内容其实非常少,只是介绍了几个经典模型。如果是抱着“对问题的见解”这一目的,几乎所有博士阶段的宏观经济学教材都不适合,因为它们或多或少都是方法和研究导向的。如果想了解文献对某一具体问题的研究进展,不如读journal of economic perspective, journal of economic literature, annual review of economics, handbook of macroeconomics, 或者其他各种的综述文章,或者imf的研究报告和工作论文来得更有效。 另一个学习宏观经济学的不二法门,就是动手写code。我发现很多学生学习宏观,都从来没有写过code(我自己在本科研究生阶段,虽然学了很多高级宏观,没有写过一行matlab code),这是不可以的。只有在数值求解模型和simulation中,我们才可能理解一个模型,才能理解为什么说宏观经济是个系统,理解为什么说模型是个laboratory。毕竟现在的模型能手解的已经凤毛麟角了,停留在罗列equlibrium condition无助于理解模型。提一下dynare。很多宏观模型都可以用dynare解,方便快捷。如果是在做研究中,当然没问题,有方便的方法没有理由不用。但是如果是为了加深对宏观模型的理解,建议还是老老实实地recursively用value function iteration或者time iteration解几个宏观模型,悟一悟这些个模型到底在干啥。 最后说一下数学。严格地说,要从底部学好宏观,需要的数学是很深的,读一下stokey-lucas那本书就知道。只不过,对大多数应用宏观研究,不需要那么多数学,会基本的微积分和概率统计就可以了,可能还需要知道一点点的contraction mapping和numerical知识。所以,如果你并不想成为一个extremely hard core macro theorist(证明存在唯一性那种),不必把精力放在复杂的数学上。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 阳羽 点击下载 4 个回答,查看全部。 宏观怎么学啊到底? 高级经济师(金融)怎么学?

  • 有哪些适合八月份旅游的景点推荐?

    知乎每日精选 · Tue, 19 Jul 2022 14:22:20 +0800

    八月将至,气温也逐渐攀升到一年的顶点。手中的扇子不停挥动,切好的冰镇西瓜冒着凉气,似乎暂时舒缓了夏日的烦热与躁动。可热爱旅行的我们,又怎舍得浪费这个多姿多彩的夏天呢?那不妨跟着LP一起,踏上八月的新旅程,解锁避暑新方式,逃离高温与日晒,在闷热的日子里觅一份清凉,享一日清欢吧~~ 海 岛 旅 行 「 三沙市 」 海南 从明朝开始,琼州府便隶属于广东省,州府所在地为琼山县(今海口琼山区府城镇),管辖全岛。自此,西沙、南沙群岛正式划归琼州府管辖。2012年6月21日,国务院撤销西沙群岛、南沙群岛、中沙群岛办事处,在西南中沙办事处的基础上设立地级市——三沙市,市政府驻地为西沙群岛的永兴岛。 “三沙”(西沙群岛、中沙群岛和南沙群岛)在历史上素有“千里长沙、万里石塘”之称,是中国最美的后花园。无尽碧波上散落着点点珊瑚礁岛,水晶般透彻的水面之下是色彩缤纷的珊瑚和热带鱼,景色可以和举世闻名的大堡礁与马尔代夫相媲美。 去三沙旅行可不像买张机票就能飞到海南那么容易。普通游客前往三沙的唯一官方渠道是搭乘“椰香公主”号邮轮。邮轮一般会在下午由海口港起航,经过文昌木兰角、七洲列岛、北礁,于第二天清晨到达西沙永乐群岛,陆续参观银屿岛、鸭公岛及全富岛,并于 第四天启程返回海口。 如果你有幸通过正规渠道踏上了西沙群岛,一定不要留下任何来过的痕迹,尽力维护好这片绝无仅有的净土。 *当地防疫小贴士 凡从低风险区(中、高风险区所在县(市、区、旗等)的其他地区)入琼的人员和7天(离开低风险区之日算起)内有低风险区旅居史的来琼返琼人员,凭48小时内1次核酸检测阴性报告办理登机(车、船)手续;入琼后第3天开展1次核酸检测。 「 东山岛 」 福建 东山岛像一片被啃食过的树叶悬在漳州地图的东南边,每个被啃食的缺口都是一片美丽的海湾。无论哪片海滩,海水都有着自带滤镜般的效果,这里的夏日,飘逸长裙是最常见的身影。 县城所在地西埔镇离海尚远,游玩岛屿一般以东北角的铜陵镇为据点,镇上吃住选择颇丰,风动石、南门湾也都位于此,明星沙滩马銮湾紧邻其南。 小镇中心是本地人的生活区,团结路是主街。紧挨着风动石景区的顶街是民宿、客栈核心区,也是电影《左耳》的拍摄地,借着电影取景地效应,街头巷尾的“电影感”很强。 距铜陵镇7公里外的金銮湾,客流稀少,水质更清。若想另辟蹊径,跑一趟乌礁湾的渔村,能让你见识海湾的不同面。 *当地防疫小贴士 对7天内有低风险地区(中高风险区所在县市区旗的其他地区)旅居史的入(返)厦人员:应持48小时内核酸检测阴性证明,并在入厦后3天内应完成两次核酸检测,并做好健康监测。 轻 装 徒 步 「 稻城亚丁小转山 」 四川 亚丁徒步最推荐亚丁小转山,转的是观世音—仙乃日。轻装10~12小时走完,可住在亚丁村早出晚归。转山环线的起、终点是冲古草甸。如果对自己的体力不是很自信,可从冲古草甸坐电瓶车到洛绒牛场,可以省下近2小时。 接下来仍旧和游客大部队一同,前往牛奶海和五色海。赶在12点之前,朝着牛奶海后方的垭口(海拔4750米)前行。翻过垭口,右前方小小的热松措(4550米)就是行进的方向,山路一直比较明显。 继续沿着山腰小路,左边逐渐出现的山谷是卡斯地狱谷,可不要在岔路口拐下去了。一处牛棚过后,陡峭的上坡路开始。这段坡度近70°的路也是最辛苦的,耗时40分钟抵达挂满经幡的垭口(海拔4580米)。接着都是下坡路,1.5小时可到珍珠海。重新汇入栈道上的游客队伍,下去就是冲古草甸。 *当地防疫小贴士 近7天内有本土疫情发生的县 (市、区、旗)旅居史的来(返)川人员,应提前向目的地社区(村)登记报备。对有低风险区7天旅居史的人员,3天内完成两次核酸检测,并做好健康监测。 「 穿越东西涌 」 深圳 大鹏半岛的海岸线被《中国国家地理》杂志评为“中国最美的八大海岸”之一,纯净的自然风光是很多深圳人避世的选择,周末前来得对堵车或限行做好心理准备。 穿越东西涌(也写作“冲”)是深圳热门的海滨徒步路线(大约4小时),只需要沿着海岸走就没错了,或者“沿着垃圾走也不会丢”。 如果是阴天,可以从东涌出发,路程先难后易相对轻松;如果是大晴天,则建议从西涌到东涌,这样是背阳前进不会被晒晕。西涌是深圳最大的沙滩,东涌分布着茂密的红树林,别有一番风味。 *当地防疫小贴士 根据深圳机场疫情防控最新要求,所有到达深圳机场的国内航班,出发前需持48小时内阴性核酸证明,落地后进行核酸采样。注:具体核酸证明有效期请以航司要求为准。所有到达深圳的旅客在起飞前必须核查粤康码绿码。 「 武功山 」 江西 几乎没有人会拒绝十万亩高山草甸的邀请。每年夏季,披上绿衣的武功山成了最亮眼的明星,无数旅行者慕名而来,在山顶支起帐篷,与星光朝霞为伴。他们说,整个南部中国,很难找到比这更壮观的云中草原。 武功山有多个登山入口,多条特色各异的徒步路线。金顶—发云界是无论你从哪里进入武功山,最不容错过的徒步路段。全程在山脊草甸间徒步,景色尤为壮观,需7~8小时。 感慨风光无与伦比的同时,长达5~6小时的翻山之旅也令人难忘。如从金顶出发,经吊马桩和白云客栈后,你需要依次翻过3个海拔1700米以上的大坡(小坡不计),即绝望坡、千丈岩和风车口,才能到达发云界的客栈群。 *当地防疫小贴士 根据江西疾控微信公众号消息,国内中高风险地区和7天内有本土疫情所在县(市、区)来赣返赣人员提前向属地报备。国内中风险地区来赣返赣人员:7天居家隔离医学观察;在第1、4、7天各开展一次核酸检测。 遇 见 湖 光 「 羊卓雍错 」 西藏 羊卓雍错(“错”为藏语中“湖”的音译,也可译为“措”)是大多数旅行者初次进藏的必到之地。但不要以为你一定能看到碧蓝清澈的湖水—看羊湖,天气很重要,只有在晴天,羊湖才会将它最美的一面展现给你。 当你被湖水惊艳时,也会和藏民一样坚信如此美丽的事物必定是神之所赐。从拉萨出发的一日游是游览羊湖最便捷的方式。你也可以另辟蹊径,选择自驾、骑行,甚至用双脚来感受它的浩瀚和庞大。走进人迹罕至的岛屿、自然淳朴的村落,去看看羊湖和蔼又超脱的另一面。 2013年起,山南市旅游局和浪卡子县人民政府每年8月18日至8月20日都举办“环羊卓雍错自行车体验游”活动。赛程3天,全程148公里,行程为沿羊卓雍错内环线骑行。 *当地防疫小贴士 根据拉萨发布微信公众号消息,严格落实进藏信息报备查验要求,所有进(返)藏人员进(返)藏前,需提前3天通过藏易通“入藏报备”小程序完成报备,如实填写行程信息。进(返)藏需对核酸检测报告、行程卡、健康码进行查验。 「 赛里木湖 」 新疆 赛里木湖是新疆乃至中亚的一个例外。与那些深陷于低地和沙漠中的湖泊不同,超过2000米海拔的它有着惊人的澄净蓝色,被完美的森林和草原包围,一直是哈萨克和蒙古人最珍视的夏季家园。 可以自驾也可以骑自行车环游赛里木湖,但在蒙古族牧民的蒙古包或者哈萨克族牧民的毡房睡一晚似乎是一种不可缺少的仪式。 这样就不会错过夕阳下的西海草原,夜空照耀在水面上的银河,日出之前就已经在沼泽边徜徉的天鹅。在日出时骑马走到山脊上,蓝宝石一样的水面和蜿蜒起伏的天山峡谷都会奔流到你的眼里。 *当地防疫小贴士 根据新疆维吾尔族自治区地市级出行防疫政策措施,抵达新疆维吾尔族自治区的旅客,受新冠疫情影响,各地疫情防控政策调整频繁,为了确保您的出行顺畅,请您出行前务必联系当地疫情防控部门确认搭乘航班始发地及目的地最新疫情防控政策。详情请登录新疆维吾尔族自治区人民政府网查看。 邂 逅 草 原 「 锡林郭勒草原 」 内蒙古 如果你执意在内蒙古寻找最美的草原,那就来锡林郭勒吧。苍天寂寂,大地以绿色为肤,由山峦温柔勾勒线条,在光影与流云的共同作用下,草原展现出最上镜的状态。 1987年,锡林郭勒草原自然保护区(锡林浩特市区东南70公里;门票15元)被联合国教科文组织纳入“国际生物圈保护区”,也被国际植物界誉为欧亚大陆的样板草原。保护区内涵盖了草甸草原、典型草原、沙地疏林和河谷湿地等多种草原形态,生长着榆树、白桦、山杨、山杏、沙蒿等植物。 锡林九曲从达里诺尔蜿蜒而来,沿途本是河水奔腾、绿野茵茵,却因上游建水库截流,加上连年干旱,河水接近干涸,成了小水沟,附近的水库也不再丰盈,缩水近半。 *当地防疫小贴士 根据草原明珠锡林浩特微信公众号消息,从中高风险地区所在县区其他区域来返人员,均需持48小时内核酸检测阴性证明。 「 那曲草原 」 西藏 欢迎来到那曲,你已然踏上藏北的土地。如果你没有乘火车或汽车穿越青藏线,路过沿途都是“矮”山的牧区和光秃秃的羌塘草原的经历,那么那曲或许会带给你一些惊喜。 那曲赛马节也叫恰青格萨尔赛马节,是藏北规模最大的赛马盛会。那曲为赛马节建立了专门的赛马场,每到8月,草原一片碧绿,会场周围搭建起五彩缤纷的帐篷。赛马开始,彪悍的汉子骑着骏马飞驰,除了比拼速度、角逐胜利,还会有耍枪、射击、拾哈达、悬体、倒立等惊险项目。 「 那拉提草原 」 新疆 那拉提草原的名字源自成吉思汗西征受阻的故事。相传,一支蒙古军队由天山向伊犁进发。此时已是春天,天山山区依然是强风暴雪。 忍受着饥饿和寒冷折磨的士兵们在黄昏前抵达了这片草原。此时呈现在他们眼前的是芳草遍野、繁花似锦,夕阳西下,一轮红日挂在远处的天空。士兵们心情大好,叫着“那拉提,那拉提”,意思是“有太阳,有太阳”。 那拉提草原山多林密、绿草成茵,草原上河道众多,既有俊美的群山,又有如涛的松林,在进入景区的山中,公路蜿蜒向上,芳草遍野、繁花似锦,不一会儿便到达空中大草原。 畅 游 乐 园 「 迪士尼乐园 」 上海 迪士尼的鼎鼎大名让这里自开放之日起就成了上海的新名片和最受欢迎的景点之一在保留了经典元素的基础上,上海乐园融入了不少中国风的特色活动、表演以及美食,甚至还有全球迪士尼乐园中最刺激的体验项目。 一定不要错过创极速光轮。它坐落于充满科幻元素和未来感的明日世界区域,是全球迪士尼乐园中速度最快的过山车项目,也是上海乐园中最受欢迎的项目之一。在翱翔·飞跃地平线这样的项目中,在4D巨幕前,你将经历一次环球飞行之旅。 *当地防疫小贴士 根据上海机场消息,旅客落地后需查验72小时内核酸检测阴性证明、健康码绿码、量体温、填写健康信息登记表。根据上海发布微信公众号消息,对7日内有低风险区【即中高风险区所在县(市、区、旗)的其他地区】旅居史的来沪返沪人员,抵沪后3天内完成2次核酸检测,做好健康监测。 「 环球影城 」 北京 经过了近5年的修建和准备,北京环球度假区在2021年9月20日开始正式运营。在这座世界上最大的环球影城主题乐园中,哈利·波特和功夫熊猫等主题区很能吸引孩子们的目光。 你还可以在极具赛博坦风格的变形金刚基地中尝试成为一名特工,与汽车人携手,共同作战,一起保护美丽的地球。又或是去到充满欢乐的小黄人乐园,与可爱的小黄人们一起走街串巷,快乐游戏~ *当地防疫小贴士 根据北京市人民政府官网消息,有进返京计划的旅客,持48小时内核酸检测阴性证明、“北京健康宝”绿码,在测温正常且做好个人防护的前提下可正常进返京,抵京24小时后、72小时内进行1次核酸检测。7日内有1例以上(含1例)本土新冠病毒感染者所在县(市、区、旗)旅居史人员严格限制进(返)京。 *在前往目的地之前,建议再次确认当地防疫政策后出行。 你的八月打算如何度过呢? 有什么样的出行计划呢? 快来评论区,和大家分享吧! 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com LonelyPlanet 点击下载 45 个回答,查看全部。 哪个季节适合去土耳其旅行?土耳其有哪些不容错过的景色? 云南有哪些适合暑假旅游的景点推荐?

  • 量化投资中的因子模型,因子暴露,因子收益具体指的是什么?如何使用?

    知乎每日精选 · Tue, 19 Jul 2022 14:10:33 +0800

    看懵逼了太正常了, 我敢保证很多人其实还是很懵逼但是觉得自己看懂了。 我个人感觉, 因子模型可以区分以下几个概念: 因子、因子值、因子暴露、因子收益、因子组合 在资产定价领域里, 大家假设的是资产的表现是由一些驱动力所驱动的,这些驱动力也被称为因子。 或者说,因子和资产的表现是有一定的因果关系的。 这里面, ”表现“和”因子“都是很抽象的概念, 和数学一点关系都没有。 我们如果想量化这种观点, 就需要干两件事: 1、 提出恰当的数学模型(model) 2、 找到合理的代理变量(proxy) 资产的”表现“(performance)的代理变量, 最直白的想法就是用资产的收益率了。 而驱动的“因子”如何量化就千差万别了, 量化后的因子, 会得到一个“因子值”。 举个例子, 我认为股票这种资产的收益率, 和它背后公司的财务质量息息相关。 这里面, 公司的财务质量就是一个影响因子, 但是实际分析中,我们需要找到一个合理的变量来量化公司的财务质量, 比如ROE和ROA。 ROE和ROA是可以通过财务数据具体算出来的因子值。 通常我们看到的文章中,不会区分因子和因子值,因子值也只是我在这个回答下提出的一个名词,为了加以区别。 “恰当的模型”就是普通的线性模型。 为了书写简便, 我假设就一个单因子好了,对于第i只股票 (我们谈论的收益都是超额收益,所以去掉了无风险利率 ) 表示定价误差 表示因子暴露 表示因子收益率的期望 注意等式的两边都是期望, 这不是什么回归方程,这就是个等式。 如果用随机变量的方式去想, 我们可以考察时刻t的一个样本: 数理统计学的作用主要就干俩事, 利用样本数据进行估计和假设检验。 我们有T期数据和N支股票构成了样本, 其中资产收益率我们能直接观测到。但是因子暴露和因子收益是要我们利用一些统计方法估计出来, 并检验是否显著的。 学CAPM的时候我们对暴露和因子收益率不懵逼, 因为CAPM的模型是个单因子模型,使用了市场因子。 市场因子的收益率是能直接从市场上观测到的, 然后我们利用回归分析, 就可以估计出每支股票对市场因子的敏感性。 因子暴露是啥, 是弹性, 是敏感性, 说白了就是当因子的收益率变动一点的时候, 对股票的收益率能影响多少。 我们有了资产收益率数据和因子收益率数据,做个回归就可以估计出弹性来了。但是对大多数情况,因子暴露和因子收益率根本观测不到哇! 这俩货只要有一个能够观测到, 另外一个就可以被估计出来, 所以这是个先有鸡还是先有蛋的问题。 为了理解这个问题, 我们还是先从因子收益入手了。 由于因子收益概念还是太抽象, 所以我们就把他们具体化一点,提出了因子组合的概念, 也就是每个时刻t,都按照因子的“指导”,构建一个资产组合。 每个时刻t的组合可能不尽相同,但是构建组合的原则是一样的。 比如市场组合就很好理解, 就是每期按照股票的市值加权构建组合即可。 如果我觉得股票代码越吉利越好, 我就多买点点股票代码里带8的,带6的,或者连号的股票, 这种投资组合就能体现出“代码吉利”这个因子的作用。 最简便的做法,就是使用排序法构建多空组合。 具体做法就是在时刻t,按照因子值的大小, 对资产进行截面的排序,然后平均分成若干组(比如分成5组), 然后取第1组合第5组, 每个组内采用等权或者市值加权的方式构建组合, 然后做多第五组做空第一组, 获得t期的因子收益R_group5-R_group1。 有了因子序列之后, 直接取平均数就是因子收益率期望的估计。 我认为这里隐含了一个假设, 因子值越大, 暴露的也越大, 虽然不一定是线性关系,但是基本的单调性还是有的。 第1和第5组的股票应该代表着对因子有着极大和极小暴露的两组股票, 两组股票构建的多空组合, 从某种意义上,应该具有强烈的因子暴露。 总结起来,这个最简单的流程是这样的: 计算因子值(比如用ROE表示质量因子)-->利用因子值截面排序构建多空组合-->计算出因子收益率序列-->对历史数据进行时序回归估计出各个股票对质量因子的敏感度,即因子暴露。 考虑以下3种因子来理解因子、因子值、因子收益和因子暴露的区别与联系: 1、传统的风格因子一般由公司特征来表示(质量 成长 价值), 特点是每个时刻t, 对每支股票n,都能算出来一个因子值。 同一个时刻t的截面上,每个股票的因子值可能不尽相同。 2、市场因子, 非传统的风格因子。 我们直接跳过了因子值计算的步骤, 把市值加权的股票组合当成因子组合, 可以直接观测到市场的收益率。 3、宏观因子, 对每个时刻t, 每支股票共享同一个因子值,比如GDP, CPI等。 但是,我们知道, 每个股票可能对统一个宏观指标的敏感度不同,也就是暴露不同。 比如,我们认为国家GDP增速和股票收益率有关系。 如果有三种公司,国难股, 国福股和打酱油股。 国难股就是对GDP因子暴露为负, 国福股就是对GDP因子暴露为正的股票, 打酱油股的暴露就是0. GDP下降的时候, 国难股会驱动出一些正向收益, 而国福股可能下跌然而酱油股和GDP涨跌基本无关。 考虑更严格的因子组合的定义: 1、这个组合只对我们想要的因子有暴露,对其他因子的暴露为0 2、所以满足条件1的组合中,因子组合的特异性方差最小 很可惜, 我们排序法获得的多空组合, 应该是不严格满足以上2点要求的。 而且多空组合这个方法,也仅仅适用传统风格因子。 使用截面回归或者Fama-Macbeth回归等方式, 可以解出这种纯因子组合。 具体流程对理解概念没有帮助,就不在此赘述。 现代的很多多因子模型, 直接使用公司特征(ROA ROE之流)的因子值(做过一些标准化处理)作为资产对因子的暴露的proxy, 并且发现效果更好(虽然貌似还没人能解释清楚为什么)。 比如大家常见的BARRA模型,因子的暴露和因子计算的信号值就是一回事。 直觉上也可以理解, 我如果认为公司财务质量是驱动股票收益率的动力之一, 那么一个公司的财务质量指标越高,就会得到更多的财务质量收益,即暴露更大。 当然可知, 一个因子可以用一个因子组合给实例化出来,这个组合除了有收益也自然有风险(波动), 那么如果资产对因子有了暴露, 除了带来了收益, 也同样带来了风险。 总结一下: 我们认为资产的表现受到若干个因子所驱动, 暂时假设每个因子驱动力之间都是独立的。 一个因子的收益率, 表示一份因子能独立驱动出多少收益率来。 一个资产的因子暴露,表示他承担了多少份该因子的驱动, 也就是承担了多大的驱动力。 所以一个资产的收益率就等于承担因子的份数*单位因子驱动出来的收益率的求和。 这个资产可以是一支个股, 也可以是一些股票的组合。 所谓纯因子组合, 就是只收到某单一因子驱动, 而不受其他因子驱动的资产组合。 所以一个因子的收益率等于纯因子组合股票权重*股票收益率的的求和。 这似乎陷入了一个怪圈。 股票的收益分解成因子收益, 因子收益又可以分解成股票收益。 以上说法和因子值,以及如何计算因子一点关系都没有!由于现在多因子模型(比如BARRA),常用传统风格因子的因子值来当做因子暴露,导致大家看不同的书籍论文会对概念产生懵逼感。 资产收益是表象的, 因子收益是潜在的。我们可以计算因子值来量化因子,然后使用因子值指导构建因子模拟组合(排序法或者使用因子值代替因子暴露)去估计因子收益率,使因子收益表象化,从而打破了这个怪圈。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 亲爱的龙哥 点击下载 9 个回答,查看全部。 2022 年以来 5 只公募量化对冲基金收益为正,公募量化对冲基金发展前景如何? 量化模型回测会遇到哪些坑?

  • 瓶装、罐装和桶装啤酒有什么差异,你更爱哪种?

    知乎每日精选 · Tue, 19 Jul 2022 10:18:03 +0800

    这个问题很有意思,尽量回答一下。 说区别之前先大概回答一下题主的问题。 1.瓶和罐包装是用的酒液是否相同?瓶装的酒液会额外打二氧化碳或者其他气体进行加压么? 酒液是否相同主要看酒厂是否罐装同一种啤酒,市面上常见的啤酒都可以在两种材质里罐装。瓶装和罐装通常都是带气罐装的,也就是说不需要再额外打二氧化碳或其他气体,好一点的罐装设备一般在罐装的时候先把瓶中的空气抽走,然后再打入二氧化碳,最后才是罐装。家酿啤酒的话,在装瓶后因为没有气泡,需要再进行二次发酵或者通过加气进行加压。 2.酒在包装后继续发酵会产生多少气体?因为瓶和罐的形变几乎可以忽略不计 那么如果发酵产生气体如果是继续溶于酒中,所以瓶装会因为承受压强大而继续发酵 罐装的在达到一定压强后停止发酵么? 目前工业化生产,不论是巴氏杀菌还是生物膜过滤或是其他杀菌过滤方式,都不会再继续发酵,所以酒在包装后都不会产生气体。小型酒厂生产受限于设备和能力,或者一些对啤酒风味、酿造传统、新鲜程度有特殊要求的,还会在瓶内二次发酵,则会产生气体。现实生活中如果二次发酵的压力到达一定程度,就会爆瓶或者爆罐。假设不会爆瓶,根据发布在《酿酒科技》 2007 年第 11 期”上的《压力对啤酒酵母生长及某些发酵性能的影响 》一文研究,“通过压力对酵母的生长影响的研究结果表明,高压抑制了酵母细胞内的各种代谢活动,导致酵母菌生长迟缓;同时,高压还容易造成细胞膜合成受损,使细胞个体发生变形,甚至使原生质体外渗出而引起细胞死亡,而致使酵母细胞的比生长速率和生物量降低,细胞的倍增时间延长。”“酵母对糖的发酵速度、耗糖率、乙醇生成量、双乙酰的生成和还原速率等,高压在影响酵母细胞生长的同时,作为一种外界刺激因子对酵母菌的发酵性能产生较大影响。” 3.如果酒在瓶和罐里是不同压强的,那么同一环境中在经过倒在杯子里大量冒气这个过程,两者酒中的气体含量多久才会变得一样? 第三问基本就是物理题了,和容器关系不大就不聊了。 回答完题目中的问题,再扩展说一下瓶装、罐装和桶装啤酒那些事。 如果同样批次的啤酒,分别装在不同包装里,在冷藏、避光的相同情况下保存,盲品的情况下可能并没有什么区别。但现实情况下,人们的认知里这几种包装对应着酒的品质完全不同。 瓶装 工业革命后,啤酒也迎来了大规模生产。巴式杀菌的诞生让啤酒的保质期大大提升,玻璃瓶也慢慢成了啤酒的标配。我们国家一直也是玻璃瓶啤酒占据主导,原因非常简单,穷。 玻璃瓶最大的特点就是可以回收,90年代初,一瓶啤酒卖1块3,其中3毛是瓶子钱,喝完了可以退瓶或者下次买啤酒时带去,每瓶只收1块。根据统计,1997 年以来,全国回收旧酒瓶使用量,平均占瓶装啤酒生产总量的80%,一个瓶子一年要周转7次,最多达12次之多,而每瓶的使用要求是3~5次。 多次回收使用带来了非常大的安全隐患,回收瓶使用次数超过规定使用次数,强度会明显下降,爆瓶伤人事件也就非常常见,据统计,1998年下半年,仅全国72个城市消协受理的瓶装啤酒伤人投诉就有734件,涉及109个品牌。1999 年据中消协不完全统计,全国发生爆瓶事件979起, 888人受伤,1人死亡。瓶装啤酒爆炸已成为危害消费者人身安全的最主要的因素之一。 当时市场上的啤酒经常可以看到棕色瓶和绿色瓶混用的情况,绿色瓶多,棕色少,因此很多人都觉得棕色瓶的酒有什么特别之处。其实背后的原因就是回收酒瓶的混用情况,酒都是一样的。后来因为爆瓶过多,酒厂统一更换了新的绿色瓶,原来的老瓶子慢慢淘汰,市面上的啤酒基本也就统一了颜色。 从啤酒保存上说,温度、氧气和光照对啤酒味道的杀伤力非常大。绿色瓶和透明瓶的避光效果比不上棕色瓶子。加上夏天的时候天气炎热,街边小店会大量进啤酒,因为店里没地方放,就放到太阳下暴晒,产生了大量日光臭,也就是大家俗称马尿的味道,毁掉了很多美味的啤酒。 易拉罐 玻璃瓶避光效果差,很多人就想到了完全不透光的易拉罐。在20世纪30年代,制造技术取得了巨大的飞跃,可以将啤酒封闭在像罐头一样的钢罐内。当时还没有易拉罐的设计,想喝到里面的酒需要专用的开罐工具,在罐头的上面戳两个洞,酒才能倒出来。 为了寻求更好的包装设计,包装创意设计师在1935 年开发出了锥形罐。开瓶盖虽然比在罐子上扎眼儿来的方便,但还是要随身携带一个开瓶器。 平顶罐和锥顶罐一直延续到 20 世纪 60 年代。直到 1959 年,一个名叫 Ermal Fraze 的工程师在家庭野餐时忘了带开瓶工具而被迫使用他的汽车保险杠打开他的啤酒罐。这次难忘的经历让他耿耿于怀, 一气之下发明了拉片。 Fraze 的发明获得了专利,将专利权卖给美铝公司,成为标准的易拉罐原型。 后来,又发明了按压式易拉罐设计,但由于没有进气孔,倒酒过程会形成湍流,咕咚咕咚的倒酒声成为罐装啤酒的象征。在最近十年,有些酒厂又开始使用全孔径拉罐的易拉罐。 不管易拉罐怎么变化,人们常把它当作一个低端啤酒的象征。原因有两个,第一个是早期在易拉罐内部,酒液直接接触金属,会让酒里总有一种金属味道。后来里面增加了特制的涂层,酒液不会被金属的味道污染,解决了这个问题。但人们心里会有一些“惯性”,而且涂层又看不见,所以心里还会觉得酒里有金属味道。 第二个原因是易拉罐的罐装线对罐装量的起装量要求较小,很多小微酒厂都采用易拉罐进行生产,又无需考虑玻璃瓶回收的问题,所以市面上很多山寨风很重的便宜啤酒都是用易拉罐罐装的,也给大家加重了这种印象。 桶装 桶装啤酒是非常原生态的形式,多用于酒吧。早期啤酒酿造后都是装在木桶之中保存和运输。 工业生产后,为了更加方便的保存和运输开始采用钢桶作为容器。由于钢桶回收麻烦,又非常占用流动资金,近些年很多小型酒厂开始采用一次性桶进行啤酒的罐装,送到各个渠道和酒吧。 理论上,桶装啤酒因为发售渠道都是专业酒吧或经销商,所以保存条件会好于上文提到的瓶装和罐装啤酒,同批次的酒味道会好于另外两种罐装方式。当然这个也不绝对,我也见过经销商随便一放的情况,希望是个案,就不再赘述了。 番外 最后聊个有趣的现象。随着精酿啤酒越来越流行,易拉罐逐渐被人们接受,尤其是精酿圈更是如此。原因如下: 1、玻璃瓶重量大,体积大,不论是运输还是仓储都对小酒厂的成本提出了一定的要求。 2、易拉罐装填设备简单便宜,甚至国外还出现了移动罐装线,因此很多新型酒厂都采用了这种罐装方式。 3、新型酒厂通常都在酒款和设计上都在引领潮流,导致很多新入门的人会认为易拉罐是更好的酒款,因此接受度也越来越高,采用易拉罐进行包装的酒厂也越来越多,很多美国的统计数据可以很好的反应这一点。2015年美国的罐装精酿啤酒产量占整体精酿啤酒产量的4%,2016年就上升到了12%。从酒厂规模和包装占比上来看,小型酒厂也变得越来越倾向易拉罐进行包装。 综上,如果不考虑早期啤酒瓶的回收换酒的模式,都是日抛型的喝酒,那易拉罐会比玻璃瓶更环保,主要体现在质量更轻,运输更省能源。如果对比对啤酒的保护,那更多比的是店家的专业程度,不如直接去专业的啤酒吧喝酒来的更好一些,容器的区别不是那么绝对的。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 赵得住 点击下载 96 个回答,查看全部。 罐装啤酒和瓶装啤酒的二氧化碳含量有多大的差异? 液态摇瓶培养后,怎么测量培养产物的酒精度?

  • 如何评价 7 月新番动画《契约之吻》第三集?

    知乎每日精选 · Mon, 18 Jul 2022 18:28:54 +0800

    一、人物关系图(第三话为止) 二、简评: 设定展开速度好快,真的快,飞一样。 整体剧本阅读难度很低。伏笔会反复交代。属于网游普遍的友善程度。 竞标的公司名字设计风格就是日本网游公会的取名风格。加上登陆方式,手游应该就是这样的系统。 附加的剧本上标注了时间。丸户的时间把控不算很严格但总体符合框架。节奏上比教师危机舒服很多。 剧情线暂时先挖出10条。 三、剧情线1 恶魔代理人 恶魔代理人第一话签约对象,根据发型确定就是鹿岛义人。这个展开太快了 恶魔代理人和绫乃选的约会地目前都是捆绑的,合理推测是绫乃在监视 恶魔代理人根据说的话来看不止一家。保持理智的应该是这一家的特色。从鹿岛义人上看,这条线是主线。 四、剧情线2 目的与恶魔的情报 因为记忆问题男主快要忘记初心了。 男主父亲是驱逐恶魔的从业人员 男主选择的事件之间与“那家伙”存在关系 男主是付费买的资讯 男主的资讯通过不接触的方式传递。 三年前贝隆市北部工厂的研究所发生了事故 贝隆市北部工厂事故与男主家人死亡有关 两年前男主把木更带了回来 五、剧情线3 蜂须贺家的傀儡 市长是其女儿们的傀儡,是个什么都不知道的傻白甜 市长的儿子也是个什么都不知道的傻白甜 市长的儿子跟女儿们不是一个母亲生的,并且儿子的母亲确定是人类。 市长的女儿们可以直接控制市长的身体动作 贝隆市的建立是市长父亲时代的事。 市长的反应、状态与男主接吻后很像。合理推测与男主木更互为对偶设定。 六、剧情线4 掩盖真相 掩盖真相的工作是市长的女儿们去做的。 掩盖真相的台词是由凛花来说的,与父亲动作同步的是莎花。两人可能存在分工 卢屋正昭对市长是傀儡知情 七、剧情线6 木更伪造的亲密关系 木更试图制造自己是依赖于家暴男友的情人设定。并且一直在人前强化这一印象 木更的三个同学在演职员表里分别是友人A、友人B、友人C。后续就算有名字,戏份应该也不多。 木更唯一的粉丝是绫乃 八、剧情线6 木更对记忆的共情 男主先后与两个妹子同居过,梅丽莎的记忆已经被木更吃了 木更在吃了绫乃同居的记忆后态度发生了改变 第一话是在吃了男主记忆后对绫乃产生的强烈敌意。合理推测第一话吃的梅丽莎相关的记忆。 七和八都前作哏。推测接下来木更会喜欢上绫乃。然后修女与梅丽莎登场。 九、剧情线7 修的安眠药 第一话特写的安眠药。 第一话中木更睡得很早。同时设计了出门时不回话的剧情,指向木更吃安眠药睡觉。但是随后木更作为恶魔被召唤而来显示安眠药对木更没什么意义。 男主会做噩梦惊醒,同时男主在木更合照的时候睡得看起来挺死的。推测安眠药是男主在使用。 尽管如此,第二话第三话的睡眠场景没有安眠药。 十、剧情线8 修的独立 修的独立时间点没有点明。当前的写法指向三个月前刚刚独立,接了一次案子之后沉寂了。 十一、剧情线9 侦探的关注 第三集 08-02 三上、摩根 11:38(+148S) 三上:这次的投标的会议记录,摩根巡警,我记得你和绪方修认识对吧 摩根:啊,算吧。那家伙小时候发生了一些事。我曾经收养过他1年左右 三上:如今,他成为了最强的驱逐恶魔业者,并且是这座城市唯一的恶魔使者 摩根:不、那是…跟我刚才说的他过去的事情有关 三上:我并没有怪他的意思。反而觉得他是这座城市的英雄。如果没有他,还有跟他一起行动的恶魔少女,这座城市的治安,早就崩坏了 摩根:毕竟警察完全派不上用场嘛,特别是在驱逐恶魔这方面 摩根:因为海外各国畏惧贝隆市独立,强迫我们制定重型枪炮弹药法。 三上:正因为如此,他和他的搭档,才会成为超越警方的最强战力。 三上(生气):但是政府和同行,却视他们为麻烦分子。想尽办法阻扰他们投标。 摩根(瞟了三上一眼)):就算是以毒攻毒,有毒的事实却事不变的 14-02 桥边 三上、摩根 21:17(+46S) 摩根:你看,结果还是得靠修来解决嘛。 三上:他…究竟交出了什么呢 摩根(转过身来):嗯? 三上:我们至今逮捕的恶魔附身者,肯定都失去了些什么。能力,身体的一部分,甚至是性命。 三上(皱眉):那么,他,到底,失去了什么呢 三上哲也的身份是警探。 这一剧情是作者的王牌剧情线的起点。(冬马专辑、千晶舞台剧、给惠做游戏)。 考虑到剧本复杂程度不高,上述两条加上无特征池面的人设。基本这人就是手游男1了。(玩家性别未知) 十二、剧情10 恶魔与间谍 此处为角色推理,真实性未知 目前来看恶魔是无差别劝诱,但恶魔势力背后可能存在山头。 第三话剧本 字幕用的官方 第三集01 洞窟 加奈 00:12(+15S) 童年的绪方加奈在阴暗阴暗的洞窟中走着。 环奈:爸爸?妈妈? 环奈:哥哥? 环奈(跑了起来)哥哥~! 环奈被长枪贯穿胸口,消失在了脚下的魔法阵中 第三集02 I&S事务所 修00:44(+34S) 修从梦中惊醒,不住的喘气。 修(按着头):没关系,爸爸、妈妈、环奈。我还记得你们 修拿起家人合照,发现木更将自己的照片粘了上去。 修(死命的扣):撕不下去 第三集03 北部工厂 恶魔代理人、渥美隼人、警卫 2:51(+41S) 海边的研究所里警钟大作,渥美隼人抱着箱子奔跑着逃离警卫的追捕。 警卫(通信):本部下达了指示,一定要确实地回收核心。完毕 警卫开枪射击,渥美隼人中枪倒在了地上。摔出的手机自己接通了电话。 恶魔代理人(通信):所以我不是警告过你了吗?这个任务不是人类能胜任的。 渥美隼人:救救命啊 恶魔代理人(通信)之前提议的契约内容,你好好考虑过了吗? 根据灵魂的预算,从B级到D级,我们准备了三种方案… 渥美隼人:我要最强的方案 手机屏幕: 契约成立 手机中的光芒吞噬了所有人。 第三集04 I&S事务所 修、木更 03:40(+27S) 贝隆市发生了大规模停电 头条新闻-今日 类别/地区新闻 贝隆市大规模停电的事故原因 今日凌晨贝隆市发生了大范围停电的通报。 木更:真难得这座城市会停电 修(端着豆芽菜吃)社会终于沦落到跟我一样穷了吗 木更从旁边种着的豆芽菜上收回目光。 木更(看向手机)电车好像也停驶了,这样还能去上学吗 (门打开的声音)修走到门边,地上留下了一封写着修名字的信。 修(拿起信):看来,现在不是上学的时候 第三集05 市长办公室 正隆、莎花、凛花、卢屋正昭 04:10(+120S) 卢屋正昭:渥美隼人,是灾害现场北部工厂的作业员。这是表面上的资讯。但根据我们的搜查,这名作业员早已在三年前过世 屏幕:恶魔芋虫扒在脚手架上。 渥美隼人 生日 8.11 身高:175,3cm 所属:贝隆科学研究所 男性、已婚 关于能量转换效率的研究论文被认可 研究所/北方计划内定。 在所内与周围关系良好的样子。 作为团队的一员坚守前线,做出了很大的贡献 3年前的同研所事故被害,之后确定死亡 莎花:既然如此,他很有可能是他国的间谍咯。目的是欧尔贡矿的精炼技术吗? 卢屋正昭:是啊,应该是这样没错 正隆:欸?这是怎么回事? 卢屋正昭:这个嘛 莎花(尴尬);如同父亲所知,创建贝隆市是为了裁决和研究被称为次时代能源的欧尔贡矿 正隆(懂了):确实在之前的演讲稿有提到过 莎花:这座城市打造出最先进的欧尔贡矿的相关技术。这对其他国家来说,是非常渴望弄到手的重要机密。 凛花:甚至啊,最近这5年被派来这里的间谍多达30名以上 正隆(吃惊):原、原来事态这么严重吗?什么时候开始的? 莎花和凛花叹了一口气 凛花:然后:那个间谍恼羞成怒做了蠢事,成了这次的恶魔灾害。现在要讨论如何处理对吧?局长 卢屋正昭:毕竟,演变成这么大规模的恶魔灾害,光靠警方实在无法控制住媒体 凛花(戏谑):是长官命令你说这些话的? 卢屋正昭:不是的,这… 莎花(尴尬):嘛,算了。只要我们不出手就无法解决问题 凛花:我知道啦,让你们见识能够骗过整个都市的…掩盖消息的能力 莎花看了一眼凛花,两人站起身来离开。卢屋正昭微微欠身。 正隆:那、那个…那我该怎么办? 莎花:我差点忘了 莎花看了卢屋正昭一眼 凛花:没有他,任何部门都不会采取行动。你可是身负重任啊爸爸 正隆说不出话来 卢屋正昭:嗯,如此这般… 现场责任者 第 号 贝隆市 特殊灾害认定申请书 根据贝隆市特别法,凌晨发生的贝隆市工厂内发生的爆炸事故以及由此引发的市内大规模停电事故被认定为恶魔灾害,允许执行上述处置。 在贝隆城市长处,盖上了蜂须贺的印章 第三集06 公园 06-01 推销员 06:18(+12S) 推销员:我明白、我都明白,无论是工作还是女人,只要喜欢上某个人,肯定会碰上这些问题的。不过我必须说句难听的,该做决定的还是你自己。我只能帮你一把让你下定决定。没错在背后用力地推你一把 06-02 修、绫乃 06:42(+180S) 修与绫乃坐在长椅上,修看了一眼跑过去的推销员。 绫乃:那么。为何特意把我叫到这么远的地方来? 修:因为我家附近全部都停电了 绫乃:是吗?我住的公寓和公司那边都没什么影响 修:结果,电力不足只会优先影响到就社区啊,贫穷真是令人厌烦 绫乃:别抱怨了,快说你有什么事。我可是从工作中抽身出来的,我想快点回去工作 修:冒昧请问一下,你这身衣服是为了什么工作… 绫乃:我可是急忙换衣服过来的,总不能穿工作服出来吧 修(不好意思):不好意思让你费心了 修(注意到绫乃沉下了脸):绫乃小姐? 绫乃:少说废话了,快说你有什么事 修(拿出恶魔芋虫的照片):因为体型很笨重,虽然是B等级,动作却很迟钝。靠我和木更就足以对付。 绫乃:你打算要狩猎这条胖毛虫吗 修(拿出一个黑圈照片):你看这个 绫乃:这个花纹… 修:跟赌场那次一样。这次的毛虫是我的猎物 绫乃:这是什么时候在哪里… 修:今天早上在北部工厂拍到的 修:(看手表)不到一个小时之内,应该会收到招标的通知。 绫乃:没想到这么详细的情报,竟然在招标前。就泄露给你这样的小公司 修(起身):有一部分的公务员对于恶魔的存在感到非常不安吧 绫乃(看向修):修你应该明白吧,这就表示… 修(跳下台阶):是啊,有人利用我的遭遇,企图榨取我的利用价值。正确来说,他想利用的应该是木更的力量吧 绫乃:既然你都知道,为什么… 修:那还用说吗?为了我的目标,我必须获得那家伙的情报 绫乃转开了视线 修(背过身去):就是这样,请你转达给社长。我无论如何都要标到这个案件 绫乃:情报泄露加上私下串通,真是违法大集合呢 修:事到如今你还说这个干嘛?绫乃小姐早就知道了不是吗? 绫乃:那是… 修:不过,请你相信我。我至今都没让绫乃小姐失望过吧 绫乃(转开了脸):以前交往的时候瞒着我去参加联谊,跟我借的三千美金没有还我,我生日那天彻夜不归,没跟我商量就从公司辞职,跟恶魔丫头组成搭档,啊,还有… 修(转过身来求饶):真的很抱歉,很抱歉,我也让你失望太多次了。啊呀,但是,那都是因为年轻不懂事嘛。我真的洗心革面了 木更从喷泉中钻出,眼神失去了光芒。 第三集07 招标会场 修、凯亚、多明尼克、布鲁诺、罗伯、正义、明乃、卢屋正昭 09:44(+163S) 屏幕:I&S $200,000 装甲车工坊 $480,000 阿难陀AB $510,000 杰德公司 $550,000 AAA有限公司 $660,000 THE guts $750,000 肯奈尔animaiold $ 756,000 卢屋正昭:得标价格20万美金,这次的标着是勇&修事务所 凯亚.阿难陀:不会吧,这是B级案件唷 正义:这个案件的基本行情至少要50万 布鲁诺.克劳扎:继续放任这种愚蠢的价格竞争,像我们这种中小企业根本混不下去 明乃和罗伯.天际线走到卢屋正昭旁边,明乃在卢屋正昭耳边小声低语。 卢屋正昭:大家可以稍微等下吗?刚才的投标结果里,因为得到了新的重要通知,所以判定为作废。 修(吃惊):欸? 屏幕: 恶魔芋虫的热力图 正义:这是 卢屋正昭:这是11点的最新影像,由翡翠公司提供的情报。 凯亚.阿难陀:这个心脏附近的发光点是? 卢屋正昭:是北部工厂精炼出来的欧尔贡矿核心,足以供给城市一周电力的,高浓度能源 凯亚.阿难陀:他吞没这座城市一周分量的电力吗 卢屋正昭:我们必须取回那颗核心。因此,禁止杀害或破坏目标。最优先事项为完整地捕获目标。追加以上附带条件后,现在进行重新招标 修:怎么会…等一下 卢屋正昭:真的非常抱歉,由于招标条件变更的缘故,刚才的得标已失效… 修:我也接受附带条件,不改价格也没关系,我… 正义(拍修的肩膀):你能完整活捉那个大家伙吗? 修说不出话 第三集08 北部工厂 明乃、天际线 11:30(+8S) 罗伯.天际线:那条毛虫看来没什么动静 明乃:对我们来说正好有利 08-02 三上、摩根 11:38(+148S) 摩根上了警车,三上哲也坐在副驾驶上 摩根:方圆1公里的居民已经避难完毕了 三上:辛苦你了 摩根:你在看什么? 绪方修: 生日9.2 身高:179.4cm 所属:I&S(I&S工作室) 个体PMCT I&S(勇与修事务所)现在的个体老板。 业务内容是专项消灭恶魔的承包业务。 过去曾于龙头PMC(AAA Defender Co三A防卫)所雇佣/留下了所属关系的记录。 在从PMC独立后为现在的I&S(勇与修事务所)所属。独立的动机之类不明。 还有很多在一次性承包中所报预算存在明显偏差的报告。也有持续性经营状况不佳的情报。 木更 生日:9.30 身高:158.1CM 所属:I&S(I&S 工作室) 个体PMC I&S()勇&修事务所)的从业人员。 职务内容为辅佐同事务所老板的绪方修氏。 还是市内高中在籍学生一般的模样。 绪方修氏的自宅兼事务所即I&S(勇与修事务所)(下略) 三上:这次的投标的会议记录,摩根巡警,我记得你和绪方修认识对吧 摩根:啊,算吧。那家伙小时候发生了一些事。我曾经收养过他1年左右 三上:如今,他成为了最强的驱逐恶魔业者,并且是这座城市唯一的恶魔使者 摩根:不、那是…跟我刚才说的他过去的事情有关 三上:我并没有怪他的意思。反而觉得他是这座城市的英雄。如果没有他,还有跟他一起行动的恶魔少女,这座城市的治安,早就崩坏了 摩根:毕竟警察完全派不上用场嘛,特别是在驱逐恶魔这方面 贝隆市 特别法第99条例 目的 第九十九条 该条适用贝隆警察等(贝隆警察及贝隆海上公安厅。以下同上)的重型武器的持有、使用等危害预防上必要的限制规定。 定义 第九十九条之二 该法所称的“重型武器”,是指剑枪、步枪、机关枪、炮、猎枪等具有发射金属子弹功能的装药抢跑和气枪(在使用压缩气体发射弹丸功能的枪支中贝隆市政府所指定的这是指根据梅尔所测定的子弹动能值,超过内阁府令规定的可能危及人的生命的值,下同。)子弹口径在5,45mm以上的子弹。 射击禁止 第九十九条之三 贝隆警察等在道路、公园、车站、剧院、百货商店等非特定或多数人使用的地方,或者在电车、公共汽车等非特定或多数人使用的运载工具上,或这些地方(枪炮中进行射击的设施以下简称“射击场”但贝隆政府规定的除外)或者不能在这些运载工具上使用重型武器。 禁止持有 第九十九条之四 贝隆警察等,除符合下列各项之一外,不得持有重型武器。 通称“重火器法” 摩根:因为海外各国畏惧贝隆市独立,强迫我们制定重型枪炮弹药法。 三上:正因为如此,他和他的搭档,才会成为超越警方的最强战力。 三上(生气):但是政府和同行,却视他们为麻烦分子。想尽办法阻扰他们投标。 摩根(瞟了三上一眼)):就算是以毒攻毒,有毒的事实却事不变的 第三集09 北部工厂 09-1 指挥部 绫乃、天际线、卢屋正昭 13:15(+27S) 数架直升飞机飞抵北部工厂,对着恶魔芋虫发射了导弹。 绫乃:冷冻弹击中目标,目标已经无力化成功 天际线:很好 直升飞机射出了绳索 天际线:看来能顺利解决呢。首先固定好目标,之后再进行摘除核心的工作,现在开始必须跟时间赛跑 第三集10 桥边 三上 摩根 13:33(+53S) 摩根:修在2年前带回那位恶魔少女后,立刻向政府申请登记驱逐恶魔业者的资格 三上:申请一直没有通过吗? 摩根:事情不只是那么简单,政府认为他们是史上首次A级恶魔灾害。 摩根(看向三上):投标的结果,除了放弃投标的王牌公司AAA之外。 屏幕: JV $560,000 AAA有限公司 弃权 摩根:所有业者组成JV联盟对付他们,可是… 三上:反而被击溃了吧 摩根:是的,被打得溃不成军,因为这个事件。政府才心不甘情不愿许可修申请的营业资格 摩根:因为他们知道,就算与修为敌也没有胜算 三上:原来如此,这下确实结下梁子了 远处传来爆炸声,吸引走了两人的目光 第三集11 北部工厂 11-02指挥部 明乃、天际线、卢屋正昭 众人吃惊 11-01北部工厂 绫乃 14:36(+2S) 恶魔芋虫变成了恶魔蝴蝶。 绫乃:发生什么事了? 恶魔蝴蝶一展翅,发出的光线让周围的直升机纷纷爆掉。随后恶魔蝴蝶展翅高飞 11-02指挥部 明乃、天际线、卢屋正昭 14:47(+41S) 天际线:怎么会这样… 明乃:原来如此,确实是只大毛虫。 卢屋正昭:是吗,原来那个大家伙是在尽情大开杀戒前,必须要先花时间羽化为成虫啊 绫乃(通话):现在不是听马后炮解说的时候啦,我们需要的是进一步的指示。 明乃:预备的机体呢? 天际线(转过头来):怎么可能出动啊,现在已经大亏本了。谁来付这笔钱啊? 明乃:就是这样 卢屋正昭:政府可能会考虑追加预算,但现在要立刻下决定实在是… 绫乃(通话):那你叫大家来现场支援啊 明乃:绫乃…你撑个5分钟 明乃拨通了绪方修的电话 第三集12 北部工厂 12-1 屋顶 修、绫乃 15:33(+5S) 修(接电话):看来您现在很困扰呢 恶魔蝴蝶顶着枪火飞过。 明乃(通话):我很忙,很挂了 修:喂,等一下啊 12-2 地面 绫乃、AAA战斗员 15:40(+4S) 绫乃:快开车 AAA战斗员:是 绫乃在AAA的装甲车上对恶魔蝴蝶移动射击,靠着车辆的机动力躲避恶魔蝴蝶的攻击。装甲车躲进斜坡,无数枪弹从阵地上对恶魔蝴蝶发射。恶魔蝴蝶反手一次攻击,整个阵地都化为了灰烬。 12-1 屋顶 修、绫乃 16:02(+26S) 修:我以为社长会帮我说话的 绫乃(通话):在那个状况下我有什么办法,都怪你过往态度不佳。既然都出社会了,就该好好面对社会吧。 修:谁要面对那些,没能力,没有决心,甚至没有仇恨的家伙 绫乃(通话):总之,现在绫乃他们只是勉强挡住目标。但撑不了多久。 这话让修感到很难受 12-3 指挥部 绫乃、卢屋正昭 16:29(+14S) 绫乃(通话):必须采取其他行动,就算要借用恶魔的力量。 绫乃(转头对卢屋):卢屋局长 卢屋正昭:是? 绫乃:事到如今,您不会再强人所难地要求我们取回核心了吧。 12-1屋顶 修、木更 16:44(+120S) 手机屏幕: 承包业务契约书 发包公司:AAA防御Co。 代表者:夕桐明乃 承包公司:I&S工作室 代表者:绪方修 修看手机中的委托书, 木更将双手环抱了上来。 木更:那家伙稍微有点棘手 修:只能全力以赴了 木更:要做吗? 修:那当然 木更(抱紧):那你要交出哪一段时间? 修:我记得3年前的还没碰过 木更(松开):3年前… 修:1个月…应该不够,3个月吧,对了,就是入春的时候 木更:你还记得那时候发生了什么吗? 修:接下来我可能就不记得了吧 木更(认真):是你刚开始跟她同居的时候唷 修:没关系,因为我已经决定了。 修(握上木更的手):为了达成目的,失去其他事物也再所不惜。 木更:你的目的是什么?消灭恶魔吗?夺回家人吗?还是、拯救眼前遇到危险的她? 修认真了起来。 木更(低下头):修,你知道吗?刚才绫乃穿的衣服,那件衣服,是她和修第一次约会时穿的衣服 修:是吗… 木更(靠着修的背)你却完全不记得,也是啦。毕竟那段回忆被我… 修用嘴巴堵上了木更的嘴。 木更(笑):你真是太差劲了,为了达成目的,就算不爱的女人都能抱在怀里 木更(吻了一下):为了拯救曾经心爱的女人,连跟她有关的回忆都能舍弃 修:差劲也无所谓。木更, 尽量吸取我的回忆吧,然后,转换成你的力量。那些回忆根本就没有用,不如转换成你真正的力量。 修吻上了木更,粉色的光芒直达天空。 第三集13 街道 绫乃、AAA队员 18:52(+23S) 绫乃从倾翻的装甲车中爬出,摔到地上。 绫乃:呃啊… AAA队员:队长… AAA队员抬头看向上方,有落石从屋顶飞下 AAA队员:队长! 石头落下的烟雾散尽,绫乃前方站着木更的背影 绫乃(抬头看木更):你… 木更:真碍事 绫乃:现在?还是指平常? 木更:你自己想吧 木更跳起来飞向恶魔蝴蝶,用刀砍穿蝴蝶的攻击,一刀直指对方胸口核心。再次躲开恶魔蝴蝶的攻击后,刀尖刺进了核心的宝石之中。 13-02 屋顶 修19:40(+31S) 修看着手上的“瞄准木更” (心声)修:没问题,我还记得她 (心声)修(捏起拳头起身拿起狙击枪):等一下 (心声)修(从嘴巴里吐出獠牙):为什么 (心声)修(将獠牙上膛):我必须这么做呢… (心声)修:明明都快要忘记目的了 (心声)修(掏出怀表):为什么呢 (心声)修(合上怀表):不 (心声)修(向前走)别想太多 (心声)修(举起狙击枪)以前的我要我这么做的 (心声)修(瞄准恶魔蝴蝶):我只能相信自己了 木更再次刺进核心,抬刀让周围的甲壳脱落,核心整个暴露了出来。他向着修的方向伸出了手。 修定睛,子弹穿过魔法阵发射了出去。穿过木更身边直击恶魔蝴蝶。 13-03 指挥部 明乃、天际线、卢屋正昭 20:31(+3S) 天际线(一脸轻松):解决掉了吗? 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  • 如果汽车油箱里加入75%的酒精会怎样?

    知乎每日精选 · Mon, 18 Jul 2022 13:33:25 +0800

    75% 酒精成分是含乙醇75%,25%的水,一般用来当医用酒精,是疫情期间的家庭常备医药用品。 因为酒精在60%的浓度以上就可以点燃了,所以如果光看酒精燃烧,化学能转热能,还真的能往发动机里面加点。反正汽油也是烧,酒精也是烧,都是燃烧膨胀做功,凭啥汽油做得,酒精就做不得。酒精好歹还环保呢,烧起来没味道,就是弄火锅都没啥问题。 而且国家也推出了加酒精的燃料,乙醇汽油啥的。 像上图,E10就代表着含10%的乙醇,但是E10还代表着含90%的汽油,两者基本都是不含水的………… 那为啥用乙醇汽油,因为乙醇燃烧能减排啊,原来100%的汽油燃烧,生成了100%的氮氧、碳氢污染物。而含了10%的燃料,就能立竿见影减少10%的污染。 虽然乙醇的热值26.75MJ/KG,汽油的46MJ/KG,乙醇的热值约为汽油的60%。但是发动机的热效率本来综合就只30%左右,所以用了10%的乙醇,对于发动机的输出动力影响大概就弱了1%~2%左右。 但那也是加乙醇(不含水)+汽油(含水小于0.8%),因为发动机本身就是怕水的。 甚至乙醇汽油的使用期也比纯汽油要短上许多,因为醇类这种有机溶剂,吸水性好,意味着醇类汽油必须要抓紧用,因为放着不用,吸收水分,燃料里面水分过多,则会对燃油发动机造成伤害。一般我们现在加醇类汽油,如15%浓度醇类的汽油,用的普通发动机,一般都要在30天内用完。如果当地湿度大,则要在两周到三周内用完。 如果一丁点水,发动机持续高温(发动机正常运作,零部件温度都保持在90摄氏度左右,燃烧室温度则是上千摄氏度),是可以蒸发细微水气的,不至于对发动机产生太大影响。 如果水多了,如果是燃料里面有25%的水,这就是普通燃油发动机无法承受之重了。如果水再多点,发动机基本就是要废了。 一个是水会造成可燃混合气不能充分燃烧,汽车的动力就会变得绵软无力,响应变慢,积碳增加。水多到一定程度,甚至点火花塞打火都打不着,发动机熄火无法启动的情况。 之前陕西汉中的多位车主在当地的一座加油站加油后,没开出多远,车辆就出现故障,抛锚在路边。从油箱抽出的汽油明显分层,并且有沉淀的浑浊物,车主们立即报警。5月21日,陕西省能源质量监督检验所出具的检验报告显示,涉事加油站的汽油样品水分占到油品的88%。目前,涉事加油站因涉嫌销售伪劣产品罪已被当地警方立案侦查,加油站相关人员被控制。 另一个水分过多则是会污染机油,让机油出现乳化现象,稀释机油的粘度,让机油的润滑、降温、清洁功效大幅下降,最后伤害发动机。 其实酒精这类醇类和汽油混合,作为燃料的,国内也有很多研究和商业化了,具体可以见我下面这篇回答。 醇电混动专用发动机的工作原理是什么?未来醇电混动会取代燃油混动吗? 另外,这种含水量高的燃料,真的不能用在汽车发动机上吗? 答案还真的是能用,燃料大量掺水作为节能技术,早在上个世纪就做过大量研究甚至商业化,但不能直接这样加水。 1981年7月召开的国际燃烧协会第一届年会上,燃油乳化掺水燃烧被列为了三大燃烧节能措施之一。 当然,这种燃油掺水,并非是往燃油里简单加水,而是加入乳化剂,催化剂等添加剂,通过机械、超声波等方式使得油水混合,生成乳化液体燃油。 1999年,法国埃尔夫石油公司研制出了稳定的混合乳化燃料油(水和汽油/柴油进行混合,水的比例约为10%-20%),Aquazole乳化燃料油。通过在柴油机上实验,NOX的排放量减少了30%,炭烟减少50%,且发动机的整体结构不需要进行大的改动。而美国的卡特彼勒公司(世界最大的柴油机生产厂家之一)研制的“A—55”,在汽油中掺水30%以上,节油率在12%至16%之间。 国内也在上个世纪末开始了相关的研究和推广,HF燃油乳化技术在2004年被列入“国家级火炬计划项目”,2005年被列入“国家火炬计划重点项目”,在武钢、上钢等大型企业进行实测。 HF燃油乳化技术是指在70%至80%的重油、柴油中掺入20%至30%的药液软水,加入一定比例的乳化、强力催化、助燃等节能添加剂,经过科学调合和工艺反应后,形成一种性能相同于普通重油、柴油的新型燃料油,可正常、稳定地在工业上应用、社会上民用,燃烧产物无污染、无腐蚀、无毒。 简单说下燃油掺水乳化的原理。 这个也是二十世纪初,前苏联B.M.伊万诺夫科学家发现的乳化物的物理现象微爆: 油包水型分子基团,油是连续相,水是分散相,在喷油器的作用下,水以微小颗粒分散在油内(乳化油雾,一次雾化)。由于水沸点(100℃)低于燃油沸点(130℃以上),在气缸温度急剧升高时,水微粒先沸腾气化,产生气化膨胀,体积在万分之一秒内增大1500倍,使得水外包裹的油膜发生了爆炸性分散(微爆),油雾变成更加细小的微粒(二次雾化)。 二次雾化后的微小油滴更容易燃烧,其燃烧表面比纯燃油增加了104倍左右,且因为微爆现象产生的冲击波,能使得燃油蒸汽更加均匀分布在燃烧室内,加快了燃烧速度,减少了后燃现象,避免了燃烧区间局部高温的热解和裂化,使得燃油更充分燃烧,减少了有害物的排放,提高了燃油经济性。此外,水珠气化的降温作用和水汽作为惰性气体的稀释作用,能有效抗爆,提高充气效率。 因为水和油是不互溶的,所以要形成稳定的燃油掺水乳化液体,并保障油包水型粒径的大小、均匀度和稳定性,需要有专门的乳化方法。 上个世纪,国家推出的66号汽油掺水13%-15%,70号汽油掺水10%,乳化剂1%(后70号汽油在1997年被90号汽油取代)。 所以,燃料里面加水也是可行的,只是别直接往燃料里面加上百分之几十的水,不做任何处理就往发动机里面灌,那么发动机也是会吃不消的。 (图片来源网络,侵删!) 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com Will.liu 点击下载 73 个回答,查看全部。 为什么现在新能源汽车的研究方向是电池,而不是利用清洁能源制造汽油? 美国科学家计划用乙醇和水制造高压氢气解决燃料难题,你怎么看待此举?

  • 从技术开发层面来说,一款发动机的研发一般要经历几个阶段?

    知乎每日精选 · Mon, 18 Jul 2022 13:26:57 +0800

    一、发动机研发体系概述 国内发动机研发体系流程基本上是如下几个来源: 1、泛亚系(通用系):主要原因是第一个合资建立的技术研发中心,还是为国内培养了不少发动机方面的工程师,包括联电等公司,这些人员的流动,带动了泛亚发动机研发体系在其他OEM的传播和应用。 2、收购外资品牌:上汽(合并了南汽)收购了罗浮,同时消化吸收了罗浮整车以及动力总成的开发体系流程,吉利收购了沃尔沃,最近几年控制力越来越强后,也逐渐将沃尔沃的发动机技术和研发体系引入。 3、咨询公司:比如与奥地利的AVL咨询公司、德国FEV公司等合作,帮助设计以及后续开发。现在新能源市场上最炙手可热的某品牌43%热效率的混动专用发动机就是在AVL咨询公司的帮助下开发的。 尚未见过无师自通的,或者能完全没有国外研发体系影响而自己开发的。 二、发动机研发阶段 尽管大家最初的研发体系来源不同,但毕竟百年工业,没有太多新鲜事,研发流程基本上都是疏通同归。全新开发的发动机从大的阶段讲,基本上分为如下五个阶段: 1、预研阶段;2、概念设计;3、开发;4、验证;5、量产。 对于大改型项目(燃烧系统变更,比如压缩比、喷油器等)以及小改型项目(比如更改小惯量增压器等)逻辑同全新开发,只不过他们相对来说已有base机型,无论是设计还是验证、标定工作相对来说都会少一些,所以周期会短一些。通常全新开发要56个月,而大改型可能需要36个月,而小改型项目或者应用项目一般仅需要24个月,甚至更少。 1、预研阶段(PG10-PG8) 这个阶段其实在OEM中是相当长的一段时间,尽管越早期参与的研发人员不是很多,但这是一个全新平台发动机开发打地基的阶段,所以前期调研、对标、技术方案、性能指标的确定、发动机尺寸(需要匹配整车架构)、总布置方案(总布置不仅仅是零件拼凑在一起,最重要的是提前考虑到产线装配、整车接口匹配等)、燃烧系统试验(单缸机以及多缸机)、整车规划适配等方面都需要耗费巨大的精力和时间去弄。同时一般会做一台Mule机进行试验验证,这个阶段的发动机因为都是快速样件,造价极其昂贵,通常要一百万左右一台。 2、概念设计(PG8-PG7) 如果能从预研走到概念设计,尤其是PG8开阀(公司层面批准项目立项,开始正式研发),只要没有大的变故,通常发动机是要开发下去到量产。所以尽管对于设计来说,PG8阀点不是一个决定性的,但从项目角度来讲,PG8阀点通常具有标志性的意义。 而在概念设计阶段,最重要的是PG7阀点,在此阀点之前,需要通过DL2阶段的设计验证,其中包括最基础也是最最重要的性能、功能、基础标定工作。 性能内容包括:外特性、最大扭矩、最大功率、万有特性、特征油耗点、最低油耗点、miniMAP、怠速、排放等。 功能验证主要包括:呼吸系统(也叫曲轴箱通风系统)验证、冷却系统验证、润滑系统验证这三大核心系统验证,即要确保发动机运行中的气、水、油各司其职的完成好自己的工作。还包括进排气系统的相关性功能验证、金属温度场的验证、NVH的验证等。 标定工作主要包括的是稳态数据的标定,核心目的是支持早期开发工作。 同时因为概念设计锁定了性能,所以关系到性能的核心零部件基本需要锁定供应商,即定点。 3、开发阶段(PG7-PG5) 当概念设计评审通过,即性能目标完全锁定,此时燃烧系统基本不再做调整,而事关燃烧系统的几大核心零部件,燃油系统、缸体、缸盖、曲轴、活塞、凸轮轴的设计也基本锁定。 此阶段最重要的就是两个工作:1、40%标定;2、大量且全面的系统性验证;而核心目标是1、自制件设计锁定(PG6),支持机加工产线以及装配线的采购;2、其他未定点零件需要在本阶段基本完成验证和定点(PG5)。 40%标定工作主要包括的是基础map数据,通常包含充气模型、爆震模型、增压模型、喷油压力、点火角等等标定内容,既能支持台架试验,还能支持骡子车。 大量且全面的系统性验证,即包含概念设计阶段的所有功能性验证,且包含大量的耐久、冷仓、NVH等验证。 4、验证(PG5-PG3) 本阶段顾名思义,就是验证,如果没有工程经验的人会很奇怪,为什么前面的阶段有验证,设计都锁定了,供应商也都定点了,怎么还有验证。 其实我刚进企业的时候,也有这个疑问,但做过制造业,尤其是重资产投资的就逐渐理解了。每一项投资都是巨大的,不仅是自己的固投,还有供应商的固投,你如果说一开始就是开硬模,拉着供应商也把产线投下去了,如果在早期设计阶段有问题了,要改设计,这一套东西就都废了,这么大的沉没成本谁来承担?所以在制造业巨大的沉没成本面前,逐渐有了一套行之有效的办法,就是从快速样件到软模件再到硬模件(OTS件)逐步验证,层层递进,企业不会因为早期设计变更、验证不通过后更改设计或者工艺等问题而损失巨大的固投。待无论是设计、工艺、装配等都锁定后,再开硬模,再将产线投下去,才是比较稳妥的开发路径。 所以这个”验证“阶段就是用来验证OTS样件的,这个时候,样件的状态是硬模件、供应商的生产线件、甚至工厂的自制件,当这个阶段完成以后,意味成开发完成,工程部门的任务已完成,后续就是制造和质保介入牵头。 为了方便大家理解,如下罗列了样件阶段和状态,以及目的: 5、试生产 进入到本阶段,研发的任务已基本结束,开始自制件的大批量试生产、开始装配产线的调试和拉产能。 SOP:start of production,开始量产。 三、发动机开发流程与整车开发流程的关系 发动机开发流程虽然独立于整车发开流程,但是又和整车开发流程中的阶段有所对应,整车是G10-G1,因为发动机开发周期不仅长,而且因其是动力源和最重要的运动件,所以开发会早于整车。 因篇幅关系,本文就不详细叙述发动机开发阶段和整车开发阶段的对应关系和逻辑了。 四、总结 从本文也可以看出,发动机开发其实是相当复杂的,开发流程基本等同于整车开发,且周期长、投资重,这也就是为什么传统车企/燃油车时代,三大件,尤其是发动机,是车企的护城河。 有一点可惜的是我们不少自主品牌车企已经消化吸收并建立起了自己的一套研发体系,也已经积累了足够的kown-how和有经验的研发人员,但新能源的快速发展,直接把他们拍在了沙滩上。 以上。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 老行 点击下载 8 个回答,查看全部。 交付和研发? 目前国产操作系统的研发能力怎么样?

  • 国产发动机制造中有哪些被卡脖子的环节?

    知乎每日精选 · Mon, 18 Jul 2022 13:25:55 +0800

    卡脖子,意思就是被国外企业明显存在独占的领域和产品。 简单的来说3个极端,基础的材料、系统性应用和工业软件。而独立的硬件零部件的,中国纯本土的企业已经可以做的很好了。合资企业会把中国工厂作为全球的标杆工厂来进行制造的比比皆是。很多中国本土品牌主机厂标版自己几微米工厂的名号也很多。2010s那个本土企业靠买韩国三手生产线的日子一去不复返了。 我们来举几个例子: 基础材料: 在进行一些涂层工艺,特别是物理气相沉积PVD相关的工艺的时候,需要一些超纯净的金属材料,这些材料全部都需要从欧洲进口。 发动机的气门弹簧,从拉丝到制造弹簧来说,已经早已实现国产化。但是气门弹簧所使用的钢材,从中国的合资车企到最重视性价比的自主企业,没有一家中国车企敢用国产材料。原因就是气门弹簧的特性需要超纯净的钢材,钢材的不良组织的控制是正常弹簧钢的1%以下,甚至是千分之一以下。中国的钢厂从上个世纪80年代开始攻关发动机气门弹簧钢,四十多年过去了,做样品的不少,成功一个都没有。这个方面目前我和我的一些同事在和南京钢铁在做开发项目,提供对标和开发认证的确认,还有做第三方的材料分析对比与发动机的仿真支持,帮助中国钢厂达到这个,目前我们已经孤独的做了4年多了,算是我们对中国钢铁工业做的一点贡献。 做这个的目的不仅仅是做气门弹簧,而是因为弹簧钢是特钢技术的明珠,而发动机气门弹簧钢是明珠中的明珠。这就意味这一家钢厂掌握了超高强度、超纯净、超稳定冶炼特种钢材,而且是能够批量保证稳定性的能力。这是有战略意义的工作。 粉末冶金中使用的铁粉以及粉末冶金锻造技术。 粉末冶金是一种非常常见的技术,很多高科技机械类企业在做,同时也有很多小作坊在做。传统的工艺本身比较简单,压制成型后烧结就好了。这里的关键在于铁粉。越是技术要求高的零件,就越需要海外进口的粉,主要来自GKN等美国的工厂。高端粉末之所以依赖进口,本身就在于其制造方法的复杂。 大概的技术模式是融化的高纯净度铁水从一个炉子很高的地方浇落下来,整个炉子都是真空后有部分惰性气体的,然后在受控的条件下用惰性气体把这些铁水吹起来,然后铁水就被吹的破碎后成为规则圆润的的小颗粒冷却。 国内的粉末绝大部分采用的是物理粉碎法或化学法,在高质量性能要求的领域远不及国外的大规模雾化法的质量好。 粉末冶金锻造则是一种更加特殊的技术,传统的粉末冶金烧结就好了,粉末冶金锻造是在烧结的粉末冶金基础上进行进一步锻打。模具和后续的烧结有很多特殊工艺。 但是粉末冶金锻造技术核心不仅是工艺,而且是基于这些工艺的材料开发。目前最好的发动机用锻钢材料的抗拉强度大概在1150MPa,美国最好的粉末冶金锻造新材料可以实现1950MPa抗拉强度。而且还能做到硬度不是太高,而且可以实现硬度不是太高。控制硬度有利于大规模加工时候对刀具的保护。这种材料目前在美国已经在军事和高端汽车零部件方面应用,可能会对中国禁运。目前给国内能用的可以做到1250MPa抗拉强度。学材料的人,懂的都懂。第一次看到1950MPa材料的时候,我一度以为他们写错了。直到我真的看到了这些材料。 之所以短期内在材料开发方面无力,是因为这些企业对材料的基础投入很多,而且具有超长时间的持续投入。例如某很多材料,国内基本上就做个常温机械性能就完了。某美国粉末冶金材料企业把数百种不同的材料以及不同配方的粉末冶金材料从低温到高温的机械性能都做了。然后每年都会新作十几种材料。 非金属材料的绝对垄断: 越是高端领域的塑料颗粒配方,越是绝对的国外公司垄断。国内一些所谓的塑料配方公司很多也就是塑料配方的搬运工; 国六排放大家都知道有一个东西叫GPF,目前国内已经有个别企业在做这个东西,也是很了不起的一件事情。但是里面的GPF载体(涂敷之前)的公司基本只有一家,这家企业女孩子很了解,叫做康宁。由于我国在排放法规方面以国六大幅提前为典型进度太快,进排气及后处理是被海外材料和关键结构设计垄断的重灾区。而且应该长期无解。 机油添加剂的垄断: 机油大家都知道,很多人也在用中石油、中石化等国产企业集团提供的机油品牌,用的也不错。但是机油主要分为两个部分,1是基础油,2是添加剂。主要的利润在添加剂部分。基础油目前国内很多,但是机油添加剂研发主要是国外企业,例如出光、亚富顿、路博润、润英联、嘉士多等等。 系统性应用 这里主要指的是电控和燃油喷射系统。在柴油机这块国内的替代做的比较好,主要还是在很长一段发展时间里,我国的柴油技术的法规进度大概比欧洲慢5-6年左右,国内有比较长的时间开展国产化开发工作。另一方面也是因为我国并没有走欧洲车用高速柴油机的路子,在商用车领域的柴油机的控制策略的复杂程度和相关零部件的加工精度要求还是弱了一些的。 其实现在已经有不少企业可以做喷油器,线束以及一些电控传感器和配件,包括在市场上作为售后件也能直接匹配。但是由于电控系统的主要开发企业还是那么几家:联电(博世)、德尔福、日本电装等,他们一般只会用自己的配套零件来做系统。 国内不是没有做过国产的电控系统。比如说陕西后来被比亚迪收购的秦川福莱尔汽车就曾经自己做过自己开发的电喷系统,我的研究生导师还负责过其中的核心部分的开发。后来一部分系统还移植到了中国一款有名的查打一体无人机的发动机控制系统里面(我的研究生同学现在还在秦岭山里与埃及等国之间穿梭之中)…… 再比如吉利汽车在甘肃等省参与国家试点的甲醇汽车,也因为甲醇汽车的配套太少,联电拒绝了开发任务,所以吉利汽车开发了一家国产的电控喷射系统服务商,然后一路支持到现在据说数据还不错。 但是就传统燃油领域来说,还是传统这几家供应商最为强大。而且由于近些年来电气化零部件和智能化控制的要求越来越多,而控制系统和标定策略的开发开始转向虚拟开发模式,这种距离未来其实会越来越大。而且目前国内对燃油车发展政策未来的不确定性,严重影响了对这类技术的投入。所以国内未来基本上不会再出现新的追赶的企业了。但是如果燃油车因为替代燃料又维持下来了,后续的追赶落差会越来越大,因为国内车企每每开发一台发动机,对方就积累海量的一波数据和模型,随着现在机器学习和虚拟迭代开发的发展,对于这些模型数据的提炼和自动学习迭代有了更好的方法,所以这种迭代经验会越来越多。 工业软件 这个恐怕是最弱的了吧。别说什么三维造型、计算软件、标定软件、NVH测试软件、结构仿真、流体仿真、燃烧仿真、振动与噪声仿真、温度场仿真等等这些独立的设计与仿真软件,未来的发展路径是更加深入的设计模型化以及将CAD和CAE结合在一起。你可以理解为未来当你要设计一个东西,可以直接修改几个参数,模型就会自动开始构建和考虑最小壁厚和最小倒角等工艺限制要求,然后会自动校核空间干涉限制,做出避让。设计完成后做仿真,会自动根据仿真的结果,哪里安全系数很高,就会自动减肉,哪里安全系数不足,就会根据敏感度寻找最合理的部分加肉。 未来的工业设计会越来越简单,但是背后是大量的算法模型,而且很多仿真相关的算法模型是通过监控大量实际运行的零件的高精度实时测量数值,与模型仿真结果对照,然后修正模型,最终让模型具备真实系统的响应特征。这就是所谓真正意义上的数字孪生。 现在很多国家,尤其是美国,正在各个领域在尝试构建“绝对优势模型”,甚至包括我们传统觉得纯粹是人力劳动的机械设计领域。这几年,我渐渐开始注意到很多我合作的美国供应商以及美国的研究机构,给我发的设计原型,结构越来越美。所谓美,指的是模型的线条越来越顺畅,光滑,而且越来越多的出现很顺滑的曲面。已经到了一个优雅和美的境地。 这个是让我很恐慌的,有些时候甚至有丁仪看到水滴时候的感觉。因为真正做过结构设计的人会知道,当你的设计要满足很多工艺要求、装夹定位以及接口要求的时候,顺畅的曲线和曲面是很难出现的,特别是有些是要先设计,然后计算,然后要在特定的位置加肉或者减肉,然后才能满足要求,就算你最后加上默认的倒圆过渡,模型中必然是存在多段曲线和曲面的衔接。 我形象一点的描述就是,正常人画一个东西,正常就是要先画出基本结构,然后慢慢丰富调整,最后调整到一个合适的设计。 而我现在经常会看到,感觉就是一挥而就的设计。感觉一个画家下第一笔的时候,就已经知道了整幅蒙娜丽莎样子。或者说一个画家从画第一根头发开始,就直接下笔了,因为他这时候都已经知道从头上剩下的头发位置到脚上的鞋带画在哪里了。 其实工业界喊工业4.0狼来了喊了很多年了,很多人觉得就是一个噱头,我一度也认为是如此,但是过去四年越来越不觉得是这样,而且我自己也在领导做这方面基础模型的工作。这些不是仅出现在设计这一端,未来这样的模型可以直接放到智能加工中心中,加工中心根据比对毛坯模型和机加工成品模型的区别,自动分配多道工具的加工量和装夹与加工分步细节,然后自动编制分工序图和加工参数。 再到未来你会发现,你必须要买某家的软件才能减少设计差错,你必须订购某个软件库才能让你的工程师完成设计,你必须购买某家的成套加工中心,才能实现在你找不到制造专家的情况下,靠极低的薪水招募到的临时工就可以完成复杂工序的零件制造工作。 基础材料科学和基于模型开发的设计革命,才是我们最该担心卡脖子的东西。 很多人其实会觉得既然内燃机这么麻烦,干脆绕过不做了不就好了吗。但是其实你会发现,其实发动机有这么大的保有量以及这么大的制造成本的容忍度,恰恰是支持先进材料和先进制造应用的基础平台。因为在现代工业下,你必须要有足够的制造量,才能支持你对材料、工艺、设计、软件系统的开发。 汽车发动机其实相当于在每辆车的前舱设置了一个离线式发电站。在每辆车上能够实现从最低品质的无序燃烧热能,提炼出有序和高品质的机械能,而且效率还不错,而且费用还可以支持普及大多数人都可以接受。这简直就是工业奇迹。支撑这个奇迹的本身就是大量的材料、工艺、结构与设计能力百年来的迭代突破。你以为你绕过了这个坑,但事实上且不说你根本绕不开来,我更想要说的是它背后本质的基础科学将会在另一条赛道上默默的等你撞上来。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com JackyQ 点击下载 31 个回答,查看全部。 有没有人面试过研发工艺员啊? 请问中山纬创资通的EE工程师的工作怎么样,应届生可以学到东西吗?

  • 发动机多个活塞同时工作,是如何保证发动机的平衡的?

    知乎每日精选 · Mon, 18 Jul 2022 13:22:51 +0800

    这个我知道! 所谓发动机的平衡,包括以下方面的平衡: 1、做功输出的平衡性,要求对n缸的4冲程发动机,必须保证每旋转720/n度就有一个缸做功。例如,5缸发动机每旋转144度就有一个缸做功。 2、活塞重量的横向平衡性,也就是保证曲轴两边的活塞位置始终对称。以直4为例,1号和4号的位置总是同步,2号和3号的位置总是同步,这就是左右对称。活塞重量左右不对称的发动机会呈钟摆式震动,如直3、直5、v6、v10。 3、活塞重量的纵向平衡性,就是几个活塞的重量运动相互抵消。还是以直4为例,1号和4号运行到上止点的时候,2号和3号运行到下止点,这样它们的重心运动就抵消了。纵向不平衡的主要也是直3、直5、v6、v10。 4、活塞重量的二阶平衡性。这是直4无法解决的典型缺陷,刚才我们说了,1号和4号运行到上止点的时候,2号和3号运行到下止点,因此四个活塞的整体重心在行程的中点。但是当曲轴旋转90度,也就是四个活塞位置重叠的时候,它们并不在行程的中点,而是在行程中点偏下的位置,也就是说四个活塞的整体重心比行程的中点下移了。因此在发动机的运行过程中,活塞的整体重心仍在反复震动。二阶不平衡最严重的典型代表是直4以及两个直4拼成的v8,但水平对置4是平衡的,直6、v12也是平衡的。 5、活塞动能的平衡性。曲轴的旋转速度是恒定的,但活塞的往复线性运动速度并不是匀速的,而是在上下止点附近最小,行程中部最大,因此每个活塞储存的动能也是变化的。动能平衡的发动机要求一些活塞在上止点和下止点时,另一些活塞在行程中部,这样所有活塞的动能总和才是固定的。3、6、8、12缸都是动能平衡的、而直4和水平对置4都是不平衡的。 总而言之,直6和水平对置6是所有方面都平衡需要的最少缸数,但直6太长了,水平对置6的加工精度太难了。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 猥琐的民工 点击下载 3 个回答,查看全部。 气门弹簧的作用是什么?它的异常对发动机有什么影响? 活塞环在压缩发动机中的作用是什么?它是如何工作的?

  • 增程式汽车、插电混动汽车、油电混动汽车三者技术壁垒哪个更高?未来前景哪个更好?

    知乎每日精选 · Mon, 18 Jul 2022 13:21:12 +0800

    弄了一个分类图,让大家能更好理解这几种电动车是啥样的。 增程式电动汽车、插电混动汽车、油电混动汽车,如果单纯文字描述来说,虽然叫法不同,但实际在某个方面也可以说都是同一种车型。 以理想ONE说,单汉语说它是插电混动,增程式,油电混动,都是对的。 如果从英文缩写来解释,目前国内乘用车能上新能源车牌照的只有BEV(纯电动)和PHEV(插电混动)两种车型,其他的HEV(混合电动)或者REEV(增程式电动),只要不是插电的,都不能上新能源牌照。 增程式电动汽车如果按照混合动力的原理来说,采用的是混合动力汽车的串联行驶,就是多了个增程器(发动机+发电机+发电机控制器)。 上图可以看到,增程式发动机是和发电机物理连接,是不和驱动系统物理相连的。是通过发电装置,将燃油的化学能转为电能(三相交流电),然后由变换器转为直流电,通过驱动电机进行牵引力驱动控制。 增程汽车的行驶都是由驱动电机带动的。驱动电机可以由动力电池提供能量(外来充电桩直接充电),也可以是内部增程器发电(发动机汽油燃烧,化学能发电)提供能量,同时也可以由增程器给动力电池充电。 增程模式的内在规则 在电池电量达到预设的电量最低值时,增程器系统启动,发动机运行最佳的状态,使电动机发电。一部分电量用于驱动车辆行驶,一部分电量为动力电池充电。 增程模式发动机有三种工作模式,根据控制策略的不同,可以选择发动机恒功率模式,发动机功率跟随模式,发动机混合模式(恒功率+功率跟随)。 HEV中,本田i-MMD系统和丰田的THS系统是绕不开的两大系统。 简单介绍下本田的i-MMD系统,油电混合。 发电机与驱动电机是同轴安装的,通过空心轴将动力分别与发动机或输出轴耦合。 其中发电机和发动机,驱动电机和输出轴都是刚性连接的不可分离状态。而驱动电机与发动机之间是通过一个多片离合控制联通和断开。这样无论是发动机与发电机之间,还是电机与发动机之间,输出轴都会为转矩耦合模式。 这样加速时,发动机和电机的扭矩叠加,就能进行双扭矩的加速。同时断开电机和发动机的连接,就可以变化成纯电驾驶模式。 丰田的THS混动系统,油电混合。 MG1/MG2/发动机输出轴连接到一套行星齿轮结构的太阳轮、齿圈、行星架上,利用齿轮机械结构来进行动力的分配和组合。 其中的发动机与发电机MG1就是转速耦合方式,主要用于发电。这样发电的好处就是发动机和MG1的转速不用保持比例关系,发动机可以任意转速(可以长期保持高效率区间),一部分动力发电,一部分动力驱动车辆。而MG2电机与外齿轮为转矩耦合方式,用于驱动汽车,在减速制动过程中也能发电使用。 再来说下混动相关专利和国内市场。 截止到2022年,日本三驾马车的专利数量占据了油电混动的专利前三。 通过全球专利数据库可以看到,全球混合动力技术申请人排名最前面是丰田、本田和日产三家。 和专利数不完全一样的是,目前国内混动市场是三大块: 以丰田 THS、本田i-MMD和日产e-power代表的日系主导双电机油电混动(非插电)方案。 以48V轻混技术的P0电机和P2单电机结构为主的德系PHEV混动以及双电机方案。 国内自主品牌推出的众多混动的方案,如比亚迪的DM-i,长城的DHT,吉利的雷神。 看下国内2021年HEV的各品牌销量占比,丰田、本田、日产占据了国内大半江山。 再看下2021年9月的PHEV销量结构。国产比亚迪+理想占据了销量的大头,因为有些国产品牌在2021年底和2021年初才推出PHEV车型,所以预计2022年的国产PHEV将会抢占更多的市场。 综合来说国内品牌前景的话,因为油电混动(HEV)的市场(专利)很明显被日本的三座大山占据了,国内的品牌现在也基本都是绕道走PHEV和BEV的路线。 但是随着BEV的发展来说,PHEV我认为前景也不明朗。 2021年新能源车上半年的销量,80%均是纯电动车型(BEV)给出的。1-6月销量前15的车型中,只有两款车型是PHEV车型。 而明年开始,已经有城市开始取消了PHEV的优惠政策。 上海市政府出台了该市新能源汽车(NEV)牌照发放的最新政策。自2021年3月1日至2022年12月31日,通过上海市交通委组织的月度拍牌程序获得车牌的消费者,在购买插电式混合动力汽车(PHEV)时将不再有资格获得免费的新能源汽车牌照。 根据新政,购买纯电动汽车(BEV)的消费者仍可以获得一块免费专用牌照,前提是消费者个人名下在本市没有注册登记的纯电动汽车。自2023年1月1日起,该市将不再为插电式混合动力车发放免费牌照。此外,增程电动汽车(REEV)也包括在插电式混合动力汽车内。 增程式插电汽车(PHEV),“比燃油车省钱,比纯电车跑得长!”的优势,在纯电车的长续航推出下,这句话也会慢慢变得不再正确。至于非插电的混动(HEV),个人觉得在国内更是没有未来,纯燃油车被纯电车抢占份额后,紧接着就是HEV的份额会被挤掉了。所以,知道为什么丰田、本田、日产这两年那么急切地开始转战BEV了吧。 看未来,还是得看纯电动。如果没有什么大的意外,按照目前的发展趋势,燃油发动机关联的动力体系预计在10年后,就会真正成为市场上的小众了。 (图片来源网络,侵删!) 参考资料: 1、https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1734402437381933117&wfr=spider&for=pc 2、https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1718022932922857498&wfr=spider&for=pc 3、2023年起,上海停止为插电式混合动力汽车发放免费新能源汽车牌照 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com Will.liu 点击下载 33 个回答,查看全部。 增程式新能源车型做保养都有什么项目? 是汽油汽车更好、还是油电混动汽车更好、抑或是纯电动汽车更好?

  • 《原神》大陆是真有小城市那么大还是被缩放了?

    知乎每日精选 · Mon, 18 Jul 2022 12:27:47 +0800

    我们可以来具体算一下。首先需要知道一个比例尺,比如地图的一个像素等于多少米。 这里我领了一个任务,看到距离是1713米。在地图上的像素距离是 像素。换句话说,这里的比例尺是1.66米/像素。 有了这个数据,其实问题就简单了很多。我先把璃月城区用颜色涂起来,看看面积有多少: 拿Mathematica算一下: 125275平方米,也就是0.12平方公里。对,只有0.12平方公里。如果做个简化,把城市视为「真空中的圆形区域」,那这个区域的半径就只有200米。 所以,如果真的把璃月港对应到真实的世界,大概也就是一个小商业区的大小。 这里有一个很矛盾的地方:从感知上,我们会觉得璃月港里的东西非常丰富,似乎什么都有;但是,从数据上看,它的大小却只相当于半径200米的区域。这个矛盾是从哪里来的呢? 很简单,就是在于简化:真实世界中,有很多很占空间却又很「无聊」的东西——比如饭店里重复的包厢、重复的桌椅。这些东西占据了绝大多数的空间,而在游戏中都被简化了。只要有一个做做样子就行了。 当然,题主问的是「《原神》大陆」,为了防杠,我也来算一下已经开放区域的大小(没有包括岛屿和内陆水域,所以也没有包括稻妻): 拿Mathematica算一下: 占地面积9.4平方公里。 这是个什么概念呢?找了一些国土面积和9.4平方公里最接近的国家: 第一个是个群岛国家,不好比较,就看第二个:直布罗陀,6.5平方公里。璃月+蒙德比直布罗陀大不了多少…… 总结来说,城市确实被缩小了。但如果作为一个国家,这个面积还是说得过去的。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 知乎用户(登录查看详情) 点击下载 38 个回答,查看全部。 《原神》玩家女生多吗? 《原神》这款游戏是什么时候发展到现在这个样子的?

  • 动画《喜羊羊与灰太狼之奇妙大营救》开播,有哪些值得关注的点?

    知乎每日精选 · Fri, 15 Jul 2022 21:25:01 +0800

    今天,大家期待的《羊村守护者》系列回归了!这次羊狼们将到来全新的国度——妙狗国,展开一场妙趣横生又惊险刺激的冒险之旅。虽然一路上困难重重,险象环生,但羊羊们历经千辛万苦终于重新集结,并且还收获了新的力量。然而这看似利好局面的背后却隐藏着更大的阴谋。羊狼们将如何在逆境中突破自己,再次拯救家园?7月15日起,《喜羊羊与灰太狼之奇妙大营救》在金鹰卡通频道全国首播,优酷、芒果TV、腾讯视频、爱奇艺四大网络平台同日更新,期待和你一起追剧,挖彩蛋! 这次《喜羊羊与灰太狼之奇妙大营救》的故事是承接《异国大营救》的故事,记得在当时在《异国大营救》播出后,我们收到了好多粉丝的反馈说很喜欢羊羊们猫化的形象,觉得他们的反差的性格特点特别萌,调皮霸气喜猫猫,酷飒的美猫猫,爱干净沸猫猫(我不听)、懒懒的暖猫猫和搞笑担当慢猫猫。 这次故事中我们再次让羊羊们猫化,除了保留了角色原有的猫化性格,同时也出现了更多的情感起伏,性格情绪的碰撞给小羊们的冒险之旅增添了不少麻烦,但同时也带来了更多笑料,希望大家能从感受到情感共鸣,在笑泪中感受成长。还有什么爆笑故事,大家亲自在妙狗国的冒险中体会吧! 大家所期待的懒羊羊猫化形态也将首次登场,憨态可掬,十分可爱!,懒羊羊猫化会是什么样的性格呢?期待大家分享自己心中的懒猫猫形象。 另一方面,我也收到很多留言说“希望狼王灰太狼能变强”,自从《羊村守护者》羊狼正式成为好朋友,灰太狼收起了“抓羊”的心,羊狼联手闯关走过了许多冒险。在这次冒险中,灰太狼有着非常重要的任务,他将潜入狗国内部,从底层做起,上演了一出励志“升职记”,同时在暗地里还要收集情报 “曲线救猫”!对随时暴露身份的威胁,还有狗国士兵,将军的重重压力,还能坚守本心,拯救大家吗?让我们拭目以待! 感谢大家对《羊村守护者》系列的喜爱和支持!《羊村守护者》希望传递出来的是决不放弃,勇敢向前的不屈意志;是直面自己,克服缺点的励志精神;也是羊狼和平相处,携手共进的真挚友情。在《奇妙大营救》中,跟随守护者游历异国,在热血中见证成长。7月15日起17:30,锁定金鹰卡通频道全国首播,同日在优酷、芒果TV、腾讯视频、爱奇艺四大网络平台播出。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 黄伟明 点击下载 20 个回答,查看全部。 《喜羊羊与灰太狼之筐出胜利》动画的第二集的主要有剧情内容是什么? 动画《喜羊羊与灰太狼》有哪些名场面?

  • 你热爱旅行吗?旅行对你来说意味着什么?

    知乎每日精选 · Fri, 15 Jul 2022 14:16:54 +0800

    先说结论,旅行让我富有底气去创造我的人生。 旅行 12年,去过 48 个国家,350 座城市,自驾 40 国。旅行改变了我,它让我的认知不再局限,它让我看待世界的角度更加多元,它让我的生活富有创意有趣,它让我的人生拥有了更多的可能性。旅行已经融入我的生活,成为我的一部分。 我与旅行 美国作家亨利·米勒 Henry Miller 说:“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things” ,一个旅行目的地永远不是某个地方,而是一种看待事物的新方式。 其实,我也不是天生的旅行者。在我旅行的这 十几年中,前 4 年,我都在旅游。报旅游团,或和朋友一起照着别人的攻略玩,没有什么明确的目的,只为了到那些风景名胜打个卡,在旅途中到此一游。后来随着我的经验日益丰富,我开始尝试独自旅行,从 3、5 天的短途,到十几天的远途旅行,再到如今去某个目的地生活个一段时间。我试着去感受自然,感知文化,感悟人生,把一切都视为人生的一种经历,一种体验,在旅途中自我修行。 这几年,我开始不满足于旅行书,别人攻略上的那些玩法,而是给自己旅行制定很多新鲜的主题,去发掘更有意思或对我有意义的地方,努力的去 be a local。比如我会疯狂的去打卡博物馆美术馆,去看那些世界名画。去我喜欢作家生活的地方走走,因为我很好奇到底是什么样的环境,什么样的文化,能够孕育出这些富有创作力的人。又独自一人在意大利旅行了一段时间,去学如何揉面团做 pizza,如何配比奶油和糖做 gelato,去学习意大利人丰富的手语表达。甚至是我三次前往巴尔干地区,只因为我想了解宗教冲突与文化融合。而我的旅途,也从坐飞机火车,到搭轮船长途巴士,再到自己考了驾照开始自驾旅行,我尝试通过不同的出行方式来拓展旅行的自由度、维度和深度。 在过去十几年里一次次的旅行中,我明显的感觉到了自己的变化。当我已经可以收放自如的制定旅行计划、得心应手的规划线路,我的对信息归纳总结能力,及逻辑性整体把握力,得到了提高。当我在旅途中迷路时,翻地图查阅网上信息甚至是去问人,这个时候我的搜索能力和与人交谈能力,得到了提高。当我在旅途中做了很多计划外的事情,于是慢慢的就变得不再害怕‘未知’和冷静的解决‘突发事件’,我的随机应变的能力,也在提高。 靠一场旅行就改变人生,我认为是不现实的。旅行中大部分的“所见所闻”多半不会立马起到效用,但它能给人带来成长,这是个很慢的过程,却终会在某一时刻起到作用。也许是工作中突然闪现的想法,或者是解决问题的方式,提高效率的办法,更或者是沟通能力。 我的旅行与工作 You can either travel or read, but either your body or soul must be on the way. “要么读书,要么旅行,身体和灵魂总有一个在路上”,《罗马假日 Roman Holiday》。 很多人问我,我一直在旅行,我是靠什么来生存和支持我的旅行的。相比起那些给与我旅游达人、KOL这些title,其实,我真正的身份是一名广告公关人。2014 年我毕业,正值中国新媒体迅速崛起。我去了广告公司,接触到了社交媒体,从做原创编辑,品牌策划,到媒介购买,公关咨询,我主要服务的都是文旅类客户,包括酒店、航司、旅游局。我的日常工作是和品牌甲方爸爸们沟通,和媒体老师们沟通,和上面政策机构沟通,策划线上线下活动,写各种 ppt,新闻稿,新媒体软文,对接 KOL等等等等。工作带给我的,是我就对文旅类客户有了直接的接触,深层次的了解品牌需求,市场需求、以及洞悉旅游行业变化。 而下班后的我是一个自媒体人。其实起初我也就是做着玩玩,更新我的旅行故事在微博微信上。后来我无意间写了几个爆款,就是所谓的 10w+,得到了很多人的共鸣,和鼓励,让我知道,原来我写的文字是有力量的,我有了粉丝,于是就更坚定我经营自己的社交媒体平台。这几年,只要新出现一个平台,我就去开设账号,通过更新我的内容去了解平台属性、定位以及用户喜好,同时我也切身感知到市场推广形式的变化,新兴的营销方式,了解那些爆款背后的运作。 所以,在旅游这个大行业里,从 BtoB 到 BtoC,从 online 到 offline,从图文到视频,从大神网红自媒体,我都有所接触,也有了一套自己的工作模式和逻辑。而且,在打理我自己自媒体平台时所了解的,也成为了我在社交媒体领域的经验和洞察,并最直接的运用到我的工作中,这也使得我总能很快的捕捉到行业的变化,提出很多新的思路,产生富有创造力的 idea,也有了我客户对我能力的认可我,让我做实了一个广告人的身份。 而我始终都在我擅长的领域和行业与时俱进着。如今我负责的项目是每年在澳门举办的,《十四五旅游业发展规划》中提及的Global Tourism Economic Forum 世界旅游经济论坛。这几年的工作中,对接了很多旅游业内人士及相关企业,我们都相信旅行是世界各地许多人赖以生活和生计的根本组成部分,旅游业终会复苏,尤其是看到疫情后国内的旅游业的显著恢复及消费潜能的释放,也看好未来。 因为旅行与工作的关系,我也受邀作为嘉宾出席包括TEDx的很多演讲,分享我的故事和见解,也让我得以用我自己的方式,让更多人了解这个行业,鼓励更多人走出去。我一直说,我不想做全才,我想做专才。社交媒体+旅游行业,是我想要钻研的领域。我不想做一个单纯的旅游达人,我更想成为一个专注旅游行业的专业广告人,在我擅长的领域和行业与时俱进着。 通过旅行,可以让我接受新兴事物,适应不同的环境,打破固化思维的界限,建立多维度思考和分析能力,继而为工作和生活,带来新的想法,这也是我创造力的来源。只能说,我从事的广告行业与我热爱的旅行,是相互的相辅相成的。旅行改变了我,旅行也成就了我,它给了我职业方向,更给了我独一无二的竞争力。 我的旅行与生活 古罗马时期的思想家圣奥古斯丁 Saint Augustine 说:“The world is a book and those who do nottravel read only a page” ,世界就是一本书,那些不旅行的人只能读一页。 其实在 10 年前,可能是个更早,我对我人生的设想是 23 岁大学毕业,26 岁有个不错的稳定职场,27、8 岁结婚,30 岁生孩子,过按部就班的人生。可现实呢,当旅行成为我生活的一部分,这个爱好彻底改变了我的人生轨迹。 在旅途中,我遇见了太多的人,看了太多不一样的人生:有完成 Gap Year 旅行的背包客姐妹;开着改装房车环游世界的情侣;走遍欧洲的美国硅谷码农,一边旅行一边敲代码;45 岁从法国巴黎出发骑行去土耳其的大叔;拿着退休金在罗马尼亚开青旅的加拿大老太太;沿着英国海岸线一路走一路给慈善机构筹钱的退伍军人和他的狗;在挪威私人山谷中经营农场的同性恋人;还有很多很多,这些人一直在我脑海中挥之不去,这些人的人生和生活方式让我无比向往。 有很多时候我都在觉得,走的越多,看的越多,我却越觉得自己无知和渺小,却又更加对世界跃跃欲试。我也想创造属于自己的人生啊。 于是,我并没有按照原先的设想生活,在 23 岁时我申请了研究生,26 岁的我已经辞职又入职。27 岁的我经常带着行李箱去上班,搭红眼航班启程新的目的地,又拖着行李箱搭最早的航班返回公司直奔工位。28岁的我一边在职场厮杀,一边又疯狂的去旅行,练就了不用倒时差的技能,把那些我想去的地方变成去过的地方。29 岁呢,我选择裸辞做一个自由职业者,疯狂的起飞降落 32 次,去了 23 个国家,带着电脑在全世界工作。如今31岁的我,选择重返职场,在疫情后时代,希望能对旅游复苏献出自己力所能及的力量。同时,我也蓄势待发着,等着奔赴下一场畅快淋漓的旅行。我找到了属于自己的生活节奏和快乐。 我们总会用外界的很多‘既定标准’去比较,谁比谁挣的多,谁买了房换了车,谁嫁的好娶的妙... 习惯用这些‘别人的完美人生’来衡量自己,但又何尝不是一种束缚呢... 可认真审视自我时,我总会问自己:别人的人生我向往吗,说实话有羡慕的,但真的适合我吗? 我开始承认我不完美,也意识到我不会完美,但这就是我,真实的我。与其选择坐在那里自怨自艾感叹时运不济,不如走出去看看外面的世界,遵从自己的内心,当眼界越开阔,就会越清楚自己的位置,更加接纳自己,知道自己想要什么,适合什么。当我开始可以真正悦纳自己时,我才是拥有真正的自由,过属于我的人生。 Curiosity is the truth and the way of creative living. Make something, do something, do anything. Dream, think, and create. To travel is to live. 旅行即生活。 旅行让我富有底气去创造我的人生。 关于我 以「一人一车一行李箱」的方式,去过48个国家400+城市的红唇姑娘 公众号 SkaeyMin 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 游旻Skaey 点击下载 172 个回答,查看全部。 你喜欢什么样的旅行? 什么时候你想来一场说走就走的旅行?

  • 如何评价国产动画《紫川》第 32 集的制作表现?

    知乎每日精选 · Thu, 14 Jul 2022 13:26:13 +0800

    谢邀,以下言论涉嫌剧透,请捂眼观看。 我觉得本集的核心表达是“情义”。 首先是兄弟情义,斯特林不想辜负手下们的信任,决定和他们共进退,却劝紫川秀找机会独自离开帕伊。 而紫川秀笑看生死,胡搅蛮缠“赖”着和斯特林同生死。帝林得知两兄弟深陷重围,破口大骂两人是笨蛋,然后镇定地做了一个不理智的决定--飞蛾扑火,做第三个笨蛋。 相信很多观众曾经都被帝林的这句“我是第三个笨蛋”触动过,所谓真正的兄弟,从来都不是嘴上说说。 其次是家族情义,魔族大军压城,城内士兵内讧,哥应星的枉死让中央军对雷洪叛军杜克等人怀恨在心,和维护杜克等人的秀字营大打出手,后来在主将的劝解下,双方和解。我想,促使他们和解的更深层次的原因,是他们都是人类,都是紫川家族,这些“叛徒”不远万里,不顾生死,为救同族而来,这些已经足够说明一切。 最后是同胞情义,魔族学习帝林的冷血策略,遣派人类俘虏作为先锋,对于重感情的人族来说,这是一个很难抉择的事情,他们没有办法射杀自己的同胞,但是如果不射杀同胞,他们会慢慢将护城河填平,城内的军队就会被蚕食掉,如果射杀,那谁又能背负“杀害同胞”这样的罪责? 魔族的残暴让部分人类俘虏意识到,哪怕替魔族趟平了道路,害死自己的同胞,最后也难逃一死,于是他们奋起反抗,但蜉蝣撼树般的局面,以及更多涌向帕伊的俘虏们,最终让斯特林眼含热泪,下令放箭,作为主将的他主动背负起枷锁,给了自己同胞一个仇恨的宣泄口,也撕破了战争的僵局。所有的眼泪嘶吼,不舍不愿都只因为他们是人类,是自己的同胞。 本集其实只是怕伊保卫战的一个起点,后续几周将持续高能攻城,各位观众老爷,敬请期待。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 无名 点击下载 30 个回答,查看全部。 如何评价国产动画《紫川》的制作呈现? 如何评价国产动画《紫川》首创隐藏互动剧集?

  • 如何评价国产动画《紫川》第 32 集的制作表现?

    知乎每日精选 · Thu, 14 Jul 2022 13:26:06 +0800

    谢邀。 本市闹疫情,今晚有空躲在家里把积攒下来的紫川动画给看了一遍,赶到了最新的帕依围城进度。 不知道其他网文作者看到自己书的被改编是什么感觉,但对我来说,最大的感觉是怪异感,还有深深的怀疑:这样激动又热血的内容,真是我写出来的么?世上莫非还有另一头叫老猪的家伙? 真的,随着年纪的增长,人最不能面对的,是镜子里鬓角忽然冒出的雪白,还有过去的自己。 《紫川》写于2001年4月,开始写书的时候,猪还是一名大四下学期准备拿毕业证即将走向社会的大学生。看着动画,我看到了一面镜子,镜子里是二十年前的自己,那时的我,兜里穷得叮当响,去网吧只敢充五毛钱的时间,胸中却怀着无限的壮志和豪气。那时候的我,相信人性本善,相信明天会更美好,相信努力奋斗就能换来成功。 二十年前的2001年,那是个多么美好的年纪,多么充满希望的年代啊!我的同学,我的朋友,我深恋过的女孩子,你们都还好吧?那些校园里的往事,依然历历在目,梦魂牵绕。 二十年过去了,很多事变了,很多人也变了,但我依然坚信,世间有着真挚的兄弟情谊,和至死不渝的真正爱情。经历了二十年的风风雨雨,面对一生的挚友们,我依然能问心无愧地说出“我是第三个笨蛋”。 回望这些年,这是最让我欣慰的事了。 感谢腾讯视频动漫,也感谢制作团队,这部动画就凝固了我青春时的幻想和憧憬,让我再次看到了年青时候的自己,重温了当年的心境。 看到自己当年的书,回想起当年大学时的往事,感触良多,心绪杂乱,有点语无伦次了,大伙儿见谅。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 老猪先生 点击下载 30 个回答,查看全部。 如何评价国产动画《紫川》的制作呈现? 如何评价国产动画《紫川》首创隐藏互动剧集?

  • 「非常规历史开题报告」活动开始——征集历史相关的有趣问题,提问赢大奖!

    知乎每日精选 · Thu, 14 Jul 2022 11:38:17 +0800

    是否有一瞬间,熟悉的历史看起来有点陌生? 「这么看感觉历史好怪!」 「但是很有趣!」 和 @历史环游记 一起,提出你的问题,向奇奇怪怪的历史发起进攻! 更可关注 #问题青年# 话题,加入 #问题青年# 计划! 本计划致力于「好」问题的提出,会不断推出有趣的提问活动~ 参赛指南 活动页面 ⬇️(7 月 14 日开放) https://www.zhihu.com/xen/market/ecom-page/1512070356176756736 活动时间 2022 年 7 月14 日 —— 2022 年 7 月 30 日 活动玩法 2022-07-14 至 2022-07-30,在社区内进行非匿名提问,提问时绑定 #非常规历史开题报告# 话题,有效提问 3 个以上问题。活动结束后预计抽取 10 名幸运参赛者,赠送「会员季卡」一张! 提问方法 在 APP/PC 端找到提问按钮并点击 点击蓝色加号点击「提个问题」卡片 2. 绑定话题时,搜索 #非常规历史开题报告# 话题并绑定 输入问题后,点击添加话题搜索「非常规历史开题报告」并添加 3. 如问题在此期间收获「50+」有效回答,或自然冲上热榜,给参与「会员季卡」活动的同时,更有另外优质历史实体书籍赠送! 书籍清单如下,随机发放: 半小时漫画世界史➡️ https://www.zhihu.com/pub/book/119608427 张宏杰「简读中国史」系列➡️ https://www.zhihu.com/pub/book/120095533 清朝与中华传统文化➡️ https://www.zhihu.com/pub/book/120286736 一看就懂的史记➡️ https://www.zhihu.com/pub/book/120256858 历史的温度 6:站在十字路口➡️ https://www.zhihu.com/pub/book/120282555 什么?等不及了?点击链接即可在知乎阅读以上全部电子书。 提问参考书 方向指引 原则上,只要是和「历史」相关的问题皆为有效问题。可以是人物志,也可以涉及有关历史变迁的关键节点,更可以集中于史书中某个细节。 只要你想得到,历史自然会呈现出万千面孔。 高热关键词 高热词云参考 历史真题 活动规则 参赛内容需符合本次活动主题要求,不得违反相关法律法规、社会公序良俗,不得违反社区管理规范等,出现如上情况,知乎有权取消个人参赛资格。 鼓励运用知乎邀请、分享等方式给予提问更多曝光,严禁刷赞、刷播、营销推广等不正当行为,一经发现取消获奖资格。 获奖名单将于活动结束后 21 个工作日内,由历史环游记官方账号发布,公示一周并发放奖品。 本次活动最终解释权归知乎所有。 快来参与活动吧! 别忘了关注 @历史环游记 ,参与活动不迷路! 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 历史环游记 点击下载

  • 如何看待知乎《拆车实验室》拆理想 one 座椅未发现水银却发现大面积生锈?

    知乎每日精选 · Tue, 12 Jul 2022 18:28:24 +0800

    拆完了!理想ONE水银没有,生锈一大片 人在拆车实验室,拆完了,直接说结论: 水银,确实没有拆出来。这在意料之中。 金属骨架有大面积的锈蚀。这一点,算是个意外的发现,要知道座椅的出厂日期仅2周啊。 「直播回放」拆车实验室 | 拆解理想ONE座椅,未发现水银,却发现大面积生锈 后续2: 在直播结束之后,理想的工作人员与我取得了联系,他们的回复是这样的,供参考。「使用过程中」这几个字有点尴尬,毕竟这车当时一共就开了几十公里,从4S到演播间而已。我这使用强度是有多废椅子。。。 后续3: 直播后的第2天,网上陆续看到了一些讨论和解读。其中有些平台的内容,还挺火。5万多条评论,还生生造了一个新词「优锈」,看到我乐死~ 同时也有网友和自媒体,质疑我们的车辆购买流程是否规范,出厂日期是否是最新的。请放心,全程真实可信!从提车到直播,间隔不超过48小时。 附:座椅骨架生产日期:2021年6月8日 座椅线束生产日期:2021年7月5日 另外,座椅海绵生产日期是2021年7月12日,忘了拍照了。这个证明,整个座椅至少是在7月12日以后生产的。 最后是车辆生产日期:2021年7月19日。如合格证。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 三青 点击下载 30 个回答,查看全部。 贝尔顿拆车工具性价比高吗? 你相信汽车的底盘可以360度无死角看到车下面的吗?

  • 为什么汽车不能设计成快撞车就自动刹车?

    知乎每日精选 · Tue, 12 Jul 2022 18:25:31 +0800

    这盛世如你所愿。但还是要提醒你,这个功能千万不要依赖,不稳定。 这个问题的提问时间是2012年,知乎刚刚成立,不禁感慨。想必你当年也是一个爱思考的青年,现在已经通过思考和实践,让世界变得更好了吧。 作为关注这个问题的晚辈,我兴奋地跟你汇报一下:这盛世如你所愿!其实这样的功能,即AEB功能已经出现,即自动紧急制动(Automatic Emergency Braking)。你所提到的「提示」功能,也属于其中的一部分,叫做FCW,即Forward Collision Warning (FCW)前方碰撞预警系统。 这是我们最近做的一次AEB横评测试,我们找来了市面上6款搭载AEB功能的车型,并制定了一整套打分标准。希望用最真实的画面,告诉大家,这些车型在AEB层面的实际能力。 这是我们第一次做横评,其中测试的标准,大量参考了C-NCAP、 Euro NCAP等机构的评测标准,设定了三大主要测试场景:1.车对道路弱势群体;2.车对车;3.车对道路常见障碍物 。 并对车辆的 识别、警示、制动及是否可以成功刹停,设置不同权重,通过更多过程分数,让测试结果更客观。并最终简化到一个总分,让大家一眼看懂。 希望我们浅薄的认知+努力的实践,没有白费。话不多说,视频在这里,希望对大家有一点帮助。 拆车实验室 | 6款车AEB主动刹车横评 亲测实证 切勿依赖 三青 点击下载 852 个回答,查看全部。 为什么开车走神一瞬间前车就会准时踩下急刹车? 为什么开车的时候明明是踩油门往前开,但是推背感却让觉得在开倒车?

  • 如何评价《原神》提瓦特篇幕间 PV「冬夜愚戏」?

    知乎每日精选 · Tue, 12 Jul 2022 11:49:42 +0800

    首先请允许我表达一下自己激动的心情……怎么也想不到制作组会突然放一波大招,直接用一部幕间 PV 把我们带往仍在旅途远方的极冬之国,在肃穆的「女士」葬礼上一口气披露了所有愚人众执行官,同时也为即将到来的须弥故事埋下了楔子,预示了旅行者与「博士」的交锋以及一场充满「亵渎」的大阴谋的到来。 整部短片蕴含的信息量不可不谓爆炸,如果展开解读那能说的可太多了。这里我姑且想一边按顺序和大家一起把短片过一遍,一边具体聊聊其中值得关注的细节。 棋盘之上 短片开场,伴随圣洁而凄婉的女声吟唱响起,一只红莲蛾在风雪中艰难飞行,这象征着「女士」一直以来对于命运的抗争。尽管拼命向上飞行,但在迎面而来的凌冽风雪的摧残下,红莲蛾很快显出疲态,预示女士最终还是在命运的螺旋中走向自我毁灭,因所作所为付出沉重的代价,迎来了人生的终点。 随后画面一转,红莲蛾飞到了国际象棋的棋盘上,而棋盘前的那位执棋手,正是愚人众的缔造者与统括官 ——「丑角」皮耶罗。可以看到,棋盘上不仅有着普通的棋子,象征神之权柄的两枚「神之心」也赫然位于其上,一方面这证实了一直以来对于神之心设计参考了国际象棋的猜想(岩风神之心分别对应白棋的战车与皇后),一方面也说明,至冬女皇与愚人众正在下着一盘真正的大棋。 棋盘上白马吃掉黑卒代表了「女士」在稻妻被雷电将军斩杀这一事件。尽管白白损失一子,但皮耶罗却说「战局没有所谓的弃子」,红莲蛾停在黑子上的画面与一句「将杀并非是终点」似乎是在暗示:同僚的牺牲并非没有意义,战局仍在掌控之中。 PS:米在细节上的把控着实令人惊叹。短片中「丑角」所下的这盘棋并非胡乱摆成,而是一盘真正的棋局,很有可能暗示着未来主线剧情的走向。 目前已有原友对棋局进行了还原,得出的结论是白方(天理)以马(雷神)吃黑方(至冬)的兵(女士)是一步极差的臭棋,在原本占优的情况下反过来成就了黑方(至冬)的优势局面。若继续进行推演,这盘棋最终大概率将是黑方(至冬)checkmate 白方(天理)。 因为个人不是很懂棋,这里仅说个结论。具体分析强烈推荐大家去阅读下附的这篇精彩回答: 如何评价《原神》提瓦特篇幕间 PV「冬夜愚戏」? 皮耶罗也于此宣告:「贤者自以为无所不知,我等才明白此等愚行背后的道义」。此处提及的「贤者」,很可能是指身负「黄金」之名的坎瑞亚大炼金术师莱茵多特。莱茵多特是 500 年前坎瑞亚覆灭时引发大灾难「漆黑灾厄」的罪魁祸首,她既创造了席卷大陆的无数魔兽,也是「白垩之子」阿贝多的「母亲」,如今正为了某个未知的目的在大陆上游荡。 同为坎瑞亚残留在世的权臣,皮耶罗曾自嘲自己的才能无法与「黄金的贤者」相比拟(详见「苍白之火 - 嗤笑之面」),但这里却说贤者「自以为无所不知」,说明两人在对抗天理、改写世界命运的道路上已经分道扬镳,选择了不同的道路。 从种种线索来看,莱茵多特应该是将希望寄托于理性,孜孜不倦追寻着「原初之人」(即法涅斯,提瓦特的创世神、「第一王座」)的奥秘;而皮耶罗则选择效忠于能够理解他的伤痛的至冬女皇,以「愚人」之姿嘲笑命运的可憎,采用更加激进的方式对抗天理的不公。 骄傲的愚人同士们,心怀怒火与永恒的寒冬吧。 既然我们彼此都见识过世界定理的荒谬与冷漠, 那就一同戴上嗤笑世界的面具,去改写天理吧。 画面再度变化来到了一座大教堂中,「女士」的灵柩停放于此(估计是衣冠冢,毕竟按剧情演出来看罗莎琳已经在将军的雷霆一击中灰飞烟灭了。不过不排除那只是游戏限于年龄分级的隐晦表现手法,棺椁中可能真有罗莎琳被回收的尸身)。执行官们开始逐一登场,对同僚牺牲一事发表评价。 执行官们 「少女」哥伦比娅 首先映入我们眼帘的是趴在「女士」灵柩上的执行官 ——「少女」哥伦比娅。女孩的面容上看不出有半丝悲伤,倒像是在浅浅的微笑,沐浴在月光中的她恬静地吟唱着动听的歌谣,显得圣洁而美丽。 不过千万不要小看面前这位看似柔弱的少女,她可是位列执行官第三席的真正强者。在「公子」的评价中,尽管对于「少女」的实力与排名感到质疑,却也无法否认这名同僚身上隐藏着一些不对劲的、深不可测的秘密。 「公鸡」普契涅拉 接下来登场的是位列执行官第五席的「公鸡」普契涅拉。从尖耳长鼻的特征来看,这位不是纯种人类而是精灵种(应该是矮精灵,也就是拉布列康)。「公鸡」不仅是愚人众执行官,也是管理至冬城的市长(从这点来看,身居高位的至冬女皇只操纵大局,似乎并不直接统治人民,这倒符合女皇「再也不会去爱人」的设定)。 「富人」潘塔罗涅 对于「女士」之死,「公鸡」市长发表了「值得足足半日的停工缅怀」的评价,可以说是非常资本家的发言了。这番言论很快就受到了执行官中另一位资本家的讥讽,位列第九席的「富人」潘塔罗涅如此回敬:「都说北国银行周转的是血泪与哀嚎,市长您的价值观比我这银行家还要扭曲啊」。 这里虽然是潘塔罗涅第一次以真实面貌出现在我们眼前,但他却称得上是我们的「老熟人」了。游戏中已经有很多剧情文本提及到了这位以金钱作为武器的执行官,他因曾经极度贫困,对金钱产生了扭曲的价值观与病态的执着,又因未能获得神的青睐取得神之眼,愤然于本应属于世俗的金钱都是神所掌管的权能(因提瓦特的流通货币摩拉是岩神摩拉克斯的神力造物),故而燃起了对抗神明秩序的意志。 在这些金币发源地的人们无比重视「契约」一事。 以金钱的名义,我会遵守我们之间的「契约」—— 用尽一切手段,让我等成为流通世界的钱的心脏。 然后在必要的时刻,让心脏能以我等的意志停摆。 潘塔罗涅主管至冬经济,是北国银行的缔造者,他用不择手段操纵着全大陆的经济命脉,让金钱不断流入至冬,并以金融战手段颠覆他国(他在璃月开设北国银行分行,目的就是渗透作为提瓦特金融中心的璃月)。不仅如此,他甚至还妄图染指货币的发行权,通过垄断货币来一劳永逸地收割提瓦特诸国。 潘塔罗涅是一位极度膨胀的野心家,在他眼中,掌握着财富与货币发行的岩神便是其一生之敌,后续我们也许可以期待一下与他相关的精彩经济战剧情。 「仆人」阿蕾奇诺 对于「公鸡」与「富人」两位腹黑之人间的相互嘲讽,执行官「仆人」阿蕾奇诺展开了她的批评。她认为「公鸡」与「富人」只是找借口龟缩在至冬的富商政要,远逊于为了贯彻女皇的意志而在异国他乡不幸陨落的罗莎琳,他们应该为自己的懦弱感到羞耻并立刻闭嘴。 虽说嘴上大谈「同理心」,言谈中也似乎是在表达对牺牲同僚的高度认可,还面露悲痛地表示「孩子们会哭泣」,但这位看似充满「人情味」的女性绝非善茬。实际上,「仆人」在至冬经营着一家福利院,表面上是在收养战争孤儿,实际却是将他们培养成为国家机器效忠的死士(可可利亚既视感),一大批愚人众兵士就是从她的福利院中走出来的(例如层岩巨渊底层的那位雷莹术士与她的弟弟)。 并且根据「公子」的评价,「仆人」加入愚人众就是为了获得更多争斗的机会,当眼中暗藏疯癫的她确信背叛能够获得收益时,甚至「会毫不留情地向女皇大人挥剑」。可以说,「仆人」是一位极度危险的人物,恐怕也将是旅行者未来必需面对的劲敌。 「公子」达达利亚 下一位发言的执行官「公子」达达利亚可算是大家的老熟人了,想必无需太多言语进行介绍。连一向武痴的公子都忍不住站出来,无奈地表示:「这可不是适合争斗的场合吧?」,足见他的这群同僚间剑拔弩张的气氛了(当然公子也许只是想接个话茬凸出些存在感……)。 「木偶」桑多涅 接下来登场的执行官外观上就十分引人注目 —— 巨大机器人与端坐在其手上的哥特少女。有关执行官「木偶」桑多涅的信息目前还极为稀少(早先仅在「百无禁忌」PV 中有过提及),但不难猜测她专精的应该是制造傀儡一类的机械技术,再结合背景设定(枫丹是个擅长制造机械、工程技术发达的国度)以及机器傀儡的造型特点(礼帽与领巾),可以进一步推测「木偶」的故乡可能是枫丹。 「公子」对「木偶」的评价中提到,她非常痴迷于自己的研究,待人冷淡,性格似乎不太好。这点在短片中也有体现:面对同僚们的争执,「木偶」只是冷冷说了一句「荒谬可笑」。 值得一提的是,提瓦特世界中存在极其先进的人偶制造技术,造物甚至能够做到与真人近乎无异,最典型的例子便是冒险家协会中负责接待的凯瑟琳小姐。考虑到冒险家协会的总部就在至冬,猜测届时也会有相关剧情进行展开,为我们揭晓凯瑟琳诞生的秘密,并且大概率会与「木偶」有关。 「队长」卡皮塔诺 站在「木偶」一旁的便是「队长」卡皮塔诺了。相比其他忙于在葬礼上勾心斗角或是表现得十分散漫的执行官,「队长」给人的感觉就要正派得多。他评价道:尽管「女士」的举止不甚光明,有失荣耀,但同僚的牺牲依然令人感到痛心与惋惜,愚人众绝不会不会停滞不前,一定会继续前进。算是第一位不打官腔、真心悼念同僚的执行官。 实际上,因为恪守原则、治军严明且体恤下属,「队长」在愚人众军中风评极佳,颇受人尊敬敬仰,西风大教堂的愚人众使节维克多就曾表达过想跳槽追随「队长」的愿望。以吐槽同僚居多的「公子」也给予了「队长」非常高的正面评价,称呼其为「好同志」,并赞美了他在战场上的强悍表现,希望能得到他的注视。 应该说,「队长」这个角色很大程度上是想往敌营侧中的「铮铮铁汉」与「义士」的方向去塑造的,文艺作品中这类人物通常会给他添上点不知变通的性格弱点,估计最后会和旅行者不打不相识,结下惺惺相惜的战士友谊吧。 「博士」多托雷 简单缅怀完「女士」,「队长」开始询问起执行官中叛逃失踪的那一位 ——「斯卡拉姆其」(「Scaramouche」的音译,即「散兵」)的情况,而询问的对象便是执行官「博士」多托雷。虽然游戏已实装剧情中提及很少,但相信看过原神漫画的朋友一定对「博士」这位重量级角色印象深刻,他可以说是目前游戏所有已知角色中坏得最彻底的一位。 在「苍白之火 - 贤医之羽」的记述中,多托雷少年求学期间便因执着于人体改造这样的「邪魔外道」而被永远逐出教令院,直到循着异端传闻而来的「丑角」在须弥沙漠中找到了他。面对这位对世人的迂腐无知感到失望与不屑的天才少年,「丑角」抛出了橄榄枝,从此「博士」便诞生了。 所谓的「人」,不过是足够复杂的机器。 如果将某个部位拆开,对某个地方进行修改。 那这台机器的性能,就能轻易得到大幅提升。 无论是否拥有神之眼,无论体质与武艺如何, 「优化过的人」都能展现超出常理的力量吧…… 缺乏法律与道德的约束,又有至冬提供的充足资源,「博士」终于可以大展拳脚,毫无顾忌地开展研究工作,期间进行了大量惨无人道的人体实验,但取得成果也是异常丰硕的: 可以让任何人自由驾驭元素力,足以与「神之眼」媲美的「邪眼」;将魔神残渣植入人体获取力量的实验(即将在须弥登场的角色柯莱曾经就因这种实验历经苦难,具体剧情可参见原神漫画);如今横扫大陆的愚人众兵团,入伍的士兵们也多接受了「博士」人体改造技术的「优化」。 仅仅是「优化过的人」吗 —— 如果贵国能够提供足够的物资、应允足够的时间。 就连你们所谓的「神」,我也能制造出来。如何? 回到「队长」的提问上来,「博士」给出了这样的答复: 世间常理都觉得「神之灵知」是理性无法理解的神圣知识,在征服「神之目光」以后,他会迈出新的一步。 其中,所谓「神之灵知」即是指「神之心」,二者英文均为「Gnosis」,这是一个源于诺斯替主义(Gnosticism,也译为「灵知派」)的神秘学概念,代表一种神圣知识或是对人类神圣本质的洞察力。事实上,原神的基础世界观设定就确凿地参考了诺斯替主义(参见《PASH!》杂志的开发者访谈),在名词设定与剧情设计等方面存在千丝万缕的联系。 由于诺斯替主义相关的内容解释起来过于晦涩复杂(其实也是因为我也讲不好,orz),这里就不过度进行展开了,希望可以通过下面这段简要描述,来帮助大家建立对诺斯替宇宙观的基本认识: 我们世界其实是一个监狱。创造了七重天并居于其上的造物主(Demiurge,德缪哥/巨匠造物主/物质世界的控制者)是一个堕落的蠢货以及冒牌货,只不过是神的低级碎片 —— 真正的神隐藏在不可知的帷幕之后,不可能用尘世的方式去认知。人们回归本源即通往神的道路被无情的看守把持着,也就是掌权者(Archons,尘世七执政所对应的英文),星体化为的神灵(邪灵);不是每个人都能获得拯救,只有少数「属灵的人」才能通过灵知(Gnosis,神之心对应的英文)得到启示。 至于「博士」接下来提到的「神之目光」(Divine Gaze),虽然很容易联想到「神之眼」(Vision),但个人以为其应该别有含义,而《足迹》PV 中就有类似的表述,由戴因所说的那句「但在神明视线(God's Gaze)的死角下,仍有人想要做梦」可以推测,所谓「征服神之目光」应当就是指找寻可以避开天空岛监视的场所或方法。 当然也有理论认为,「神之眼」本身就意味着神明对于人类梦想的凝望与窥伺,是禁止人类做梦的虚假幻象,一如笼罩提瓦特的虚假星空,也是束缚人类的甜美毒药。若想自由掌控命运,就必须彻底切断自己与神之眼的联系,但这一点很难真正做到。 总的来看,「博士」所说的这段话其实还是非常的「谜语人」,提炼之下我们只能获知夺取雷神「神之心」的散兵已经「做好进入下一阶段的准备」。至于什么是「下一阶段」,是登神还是其他什么含义,只有等待后续剧情为我们揭晓,这个时刻相信距离我们也并不遥远了。 「丑角」皮耶罗 执行官已悉数登场,背景音乐也随之升上高潮,愚人众的缔造者与统括官 ——「丑角」皮耶罗此时自黑暗中缓缓步入礼堂,面朝全体执行官,为这冬夜里的葬礼与愚戏献上最后的致辞: 夜晚的愚戏该结束了,此刻你们没有观众。 所有崇高的牺牲,都将铭刻于坚冰之上,于国长存。 在高洁的冰之女皇麾下,我们将攫取众神的权柄! 有关「丑角」皮耶罗的情报,我已经在「棋盘之上」一节中做了一些描述。此刻这位神秘老者终于展现了他真正的面目,与我们的老朋友凯亚与戴因斯雷布一样,皮耶罗也拥有星形瞳孔,这是坎瑞亚人的象征,也是代表着无法逃离的痛苦与诅咒。 我们不清楚皮耶罗当年究竟是如何逃脱由天理对坎瑞亚国民降下的因果律级的「诅咒」,也无从得知他是否与戴因斯雷布一样,在使用「那样东西」(主线「回响渊底的安魂曲」中提及的神秘道具)一边拖延「诅咒」的发作一边日夜承受着「诅咒」带来的痛苦。但我们知道,这位老者内心交织着悔恨与愤怒的火焰五百年来从未熄灭,他相信终有一天,他会实现那伟大的复仇。 PS:不正经吐槽时间。除去暂时摸鱼的凯亚,现存在世的三位坎瑞亚权臣:戴因斯雷布、莱茵多特与皮耶罗,几乎是在奉行三种完全不同的道路: 「没有人比我更懂诅咒」的戴因似乎已经放弃激烈的抗争,跻身鸽派,问他就是「到旅途尽头你一定会懂」,虽然未必是在摆烂,但看来是将一切命运都寄托在旅行者双子身上了; 曾引导坎瑞亚撕开深罪纱笼(深渊)结果招来神怒,而后铸成漆黑浪潮之重罪的莱茵多特则坚持在走学术路线,希望通过探寻世界的本质来发现扭转之法,目前依然是神秘度最高的人物; 一腔热血的皮耶罗大爷反倒是其中最刚的,心态已经变成「当我是小丑也无所谓,本人就是不服」,现在在理解他的冰神支持下,准备集合力量夺取众神权柄,直接正面朝天理举起叛旗。 不知道这三人的路线到最后会不会殊途同归,但我很好奇,坎瑞亚残留在世的人本就屈指可数,为什么这仨人不聚一聚交换交换情报,一起多商量商量呢? 葬仪之末 画面转到教堂外景,繁星与极光闪耀的冬夜天幕下,壮观的女士纪念堂与其中的灵柩被迅速冰封,一切归于永恒的安宁。 相信至冬的文化原型为沙皇俄国这点已经众所周知,而此次短片中出现的这座至冬教堂也完全符合国家原型,为具有明显东欧风格的建筑,参考原型应是位于俄罗斯莫斯科的「基督救世主主教座堂」(Храм Христа Спасителя),其既是世界上最高的东正教教堂,也是最大的东正教教堂之一,现实中就是为感谢耶稣基督并纪念在战争中牺牲的人民而修建,游戏中更是成为「女士」一人的安眠之所,这是毫无疑问的国葬级待遇。 安宁的冰宫内,「女士」的灵柩被反射着美丽光彩的重重坚冰包围,飞舞的红莲蛾最终轻轻停在灵柩之上,化为火星飘散而去。一如彼时向少女许下定会带她见证纯白无暇国度诞生的诺言(妄念),「丑角」再度郑重宣誓,不公的旧世界必将燃尽,定要让整个旧世界为她陪葬。 这里其实不难感受到,「丑角」是真的把同僚当成了一起并肩作战的战友,绝不仅是大家所以为的利用关系而已。当年遇见那位生命之火几乎枯竭的不甘少女时,「丑角」大抵也是发自内心地在同情,因为在少女身上,他看到了自己的当年被冷血的诸神与不公正的命运夺走一切幸福的身影。 一处细节:除了可能只是在惺惺作态的「仆人」外,「丑角」是众人中罕见地用「女士」的名字 ——「罗莎琳」来称呼她的人。作为亲自将「女士」带入组织的引路人,也是「女士」的绝对上级,尽管执行官中不喜欢这个性格狂妄又举止跋扈的女人的人不在少数,但「丑角」是真切地把她当作重要的伙伴在看待。 火焰与亵渎 「女士」的葬礼已经结束,但短片并未就此完结。接下来出现的一系列彩蛋画面信息量极大,为即将到来的须弥剧情做好了重要铺垫。 首先是黑屏中响起的一段与「博士」相关的值得玩味的对话: 博士,今天的你看起来很年轻啊。 你知道的,这句话对我来说可不算什么奉承。 那全盛时期的「切片」,此刻又在哪里呢? 这段对话其实隐晦地揭晓了「博士」身上的一项重大秘密,结合「公子」的评价我们可以得知:作为疯狂科学家,「博士」不仅用别人做实验,也拿自己做实验,他以年龄为界,将不同时期的自己做成假体(即「切片」),每一个都被指派了不同的任务。有复数个「自己」在同时活动对于常人而言也许不可想象也难以接受,但对「博士」这种狂人而言,这既是最高效完成目标的选择,也是确保自己不会被轻易消灭的万全保险。 那么,对话中所提及的「博士全盛时期的切片」究竟去往了哪里呢? 答案是「在一场关于亵渎的实验」中。暂时还无法确认伴随这个答案出现的画面中有如末日般景象的含义,燃烧的巨树既可能是直接预示「博士」在须弥进行的一次可怕破坏,他将设法点燃灵树,摧毁须弥人赖以生活的土地,以最激进的形式彰显对七神秩序的轻蔑与鄙夷,也可能代表着他更进一步的、更加亵渎的破坏欲望 —— 燃烧贯穿世界的巨树,摧毁维系世界的地脉,让旧世界在火焰中迎来净化与毁灭。 说起「燃烧的巨树」,相信很多朋友会联想到北欧神话中的著名传说「诸神的黄昏」(Ragnarök)。 传说在那末日神战的终末,发狂的火焰巨人「苏尔特尔」(Surtr)将把手中的炎之魔剑「莱瓦汀」(Laevatain)投向天空,在红莲般的熊熊烈焰之中,人类世界「中庭/米德加尔德」(Midgard)与其他八个世界化作一片火海,烈火柱贯穿宇宙,浓烟卷没山顶,支撑宇宙的「世界树/尤克特拉希尔」(Yggdrasill)也被火焰吞没而崩倒。整个世界轰然毁灭,一切重归混沌。 但是,世界并未就此终结,一切仍会重生。在已毁灭的宇宙极南端,有一片未有人至的纯净蓝天,末日之劫过后,残存的神来到这里,从他们脚下的大海涌出新的土地。这片经过海水净化的土地陆续长出比以前更绿、更茂盛的植物,大地渐渐恢复了生机。两位人类也幸运地从中浩劫幸存,成为人类新的始祖,与残存的神一起加入到重建新世界的工作中。 原神所参考的诺斯替主义世界观中也存在类似的「毁灭,然后迎接新生」思想,故而在描写提瓦特创世历史的书籍《日月前事》中出现了「世界如果要被创造,蛋壳必须被打破」的描述,一如黑塞在其著作《德米安》(Demian)中写下的那句名言「鸟要挣脱出壳,蛋就是世界。人要诞于世上,就得摧毁这个世界」(原文:Der Vogel kämpft sich aus dem Ei. 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  • 如何度过一个充实有料的夏天?

    知乎每日精选 · Mon, 11 Jul 2022 18:24:50 +0800

    炎炎夏日如何安排?知乎想陪你一起过! 今年的夏天,除了宅家吹空调、吃西瓜,怎么才能过得「有趣有料」?7 月 11 日起,知乎将为大家送出一场为期两月的暑期休闲盛宴,快来查收这份「有料」的夏日指南吧。 活动期间,知乎将上线三档自制节目和多个领域活动,聚焦当下青年群体在成长过程中的关注点进行全方位的内容放送,为今年的夏天增添一份料。上知乎,搜「过夏天」,或戳 链接进入主会场,一起烦恼勿扰,快乐充电,收获更好的自己! 2022 过夏天 多领域活动来袭 带你过「有料」夏天 如果你是电竞达人、热爱电子竞技,想感受这个夏天不一样的热血辣评,那一定要来知乎边聊边看。 @知乎电竞 将带你开启一场属于游戏者们的狂欢! 如果你喜欢看动画,那 7 月正是夏季新番登场的时候了。对这一季的动画,你有哪些期待?动画又会有什么惊喜? @知乎动画 带你开始追番修仙之旅,看看谁是本季霸权。 如果你喜欢看电影,那一定要来知乎看「影视十级学者们」的好片推荐、热剧点评 @知乎电影 将与你一起看今年夏天最值得入坑的新片佳作,好剧热综。 如果你正在处于怦然心动的恋爱中,想学习一些约会攻略,想记录下恋爱经历的那些点点滴滴,那么就来和 @知乎情感君 一起过个怦然心动的夏天吧! 如果你热爱时尚,想在这个夏天变美变潮,从新手小白到行家大神,来一次全新的蜕变。这个夏天, @知乎时尚 @知乎美妆 邀你领取限时任务,争做一名合格的时髦尖子生! 如果你喜欢旅行,想趁着大好时光出去走走, @知乎旅行 能带你一起领略全国各地最值得打卡的游玩胜地。 以上活动详情,皆可关注相关官方机构号 @知乎电竞 、 @知乎动画 、 @知乎电影、 @知乎剧综、 @知乎情感君 、 @知乎旅行 、 @知乎时尚 、 @知乎美妆 查看 ,期待你的参与。 三档「有料」自制节目 知乎独播 陪你快乐充电 为了给大家带来全新的内容体验 , @知乎出品 在今年夏天准备了三档自制节目,希望能为当代年轻人的困惑提供更多的视角,和这一代年轻人共同成长。 这三档节目都将于 8 月和大家见面,一起来抢先了解下吧! 《我的高考笑忘书》 知乎首档高考纪实人物访谈节目 12 个真实的高考过来人的故事,12 个变失为利、寻找自我、逆风成长的故事,如何面对人生的失利,这些高考过来人的经历或许能给你不一样的答案! 《荒野会谈》 知乎首档荒野系青年谈话节目 李雪琴、李松蔚、章若楠、席瑞、李浩源、刘博洋、蒋先贵带你远离城市回归荒野,在轻松聊天中探讨「 Z 世代年轻人到底如何认识世界」? 《我所向往的职业啊》 知乎首档职场青年纪实观察节目 你向往的职业是什么样的?我们寻找到各行业优秀青年,记录了他们的真实工作日常,并将拟邀杨天真、陈铭、夏鹏、崔璀等一起观察、讨论,分享职场有用知识。和我们一起跟随优秀职场青年,探寻向往职业的真相吧! 关注 @知乎出品 官方账号,观看节目更多花絮。这个 8 月,我们不见不散! 希望我们都度过一个「有料」的夏天~ 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 知乎 点击下载 174 个回答,查看全部。 如何好好利用高考过后的暑假生活? 有没有走心的春节假期结束的文案?

  • 比亚迪推出了 DM-i、吉利推出了雷神、长城有了柠檬 DHT,国产混动技术究竟是什么水平?

    知乎每日精选 · Mon, 11 Jul 2022 13:34:51 +0800

    有兴趣可以先看一下我写的比亚迪DM-i技术详解: 如何评价比亚迪秦PLUS搭载的DM-i混动技术,为何被称之为「超级混动」? 下面从混动技术发展史的角度来缕一缕。从混动诞生到七八年前这段时间,混动界的一句话是成立的:世界上只有两种混动,一种是丰田THS,另一种是其它。 曾经的这句话,是对丰田THS技术水平和历史地位的夸赞! 这句话的意思是说丰田THS成熟最早,构型从第1代到第4代就没怎么变过;相比之下「其它」的内涵非常丰富,可以说是八仙过海,各显神通。 不少技术路线还淹没在历史长河中,不再被人记起。比如说,现在大家只记得本田iMMD,谁还记得更早的本田IMA? 现在DM-i如雷贯耳,谁还会买DM1、DM2、DM3的产品呢? 那个年代,混动的头部基本上就是日系三强在打架: 丰田THS出手即巅峰,一直领先;本田一路波折,终于在iMMD上开花结果;日产剑走偏锋,走出了e-POWER的路子。此时的自主品牌,还处于技术积累打磨阶段。 如今,情况大有变化,但混动领域依然可以用一句话来概括:世界上还是只有两种混动,一种是THS,另一种串并联DHT(包括比亚迪DM–i,只是命名不同)。 类似的一句话,放在今天不再是对丰田THS的夸赞了,只是表明技术路线的“特立独行” —— 后来者都不跟进丰田THS,而是走了DHT路线,这是为什么呢? 二者实力此消彼长,竞争格局已经发生了巨大变化了! THS阵营多了一个实力强大的老法师、擅长搞各种黑科技的通用汽车:一个行星齿轮不过瘾,它要用两个;模式太少不过瘾,它要加4个离合器。 这也可以说是一种技术狂热者的终极方案,但最终在产品上未形成气候,也就不为人所知了。 串并联DHT分很多种,构成了自主品牌混动百花齐放的局面: 就比如说,本田iMMD、比亚迪DM-i和岚图梦想家插混版,是发动机单档直驱的DHT: 长城柠檬DHT、广汽传祺GMC,是发动机两档直驱的DHT: 吉利雷神混动,则为三档直驱的DHT。图没画。 至于理想ONE、岚图FREE、问界M5、日产e-POWER,可以理解为发动机零档直驱(不能直驱)的DHT: 可以看到,除了THS的技术路线之外,其它的混动技术路线走到最后,不约而同都来到了串并联的终点。那么,我们关心的问题其实只有三个了: 和THS相比,串并联有何优劣? 单档、两档、三档的串并联相比,有何优劣? 增程式作为“零档”串并联,有何优劣? 1. 和THS相比,串并联有何优劣 THS历史非常悠久,那时候电池、电机技术都很一般,而且也比较贵。所以丰田THS是一种以发动机为核心的混动方案 —— 电池、电机都只是打杂的,就像Dota、LOL的5号位辅助一样,性能差一点、成本高一点也无所谓。 只要团队配置合理(混动构型精妙),作为一个整体就能赢。 打Dota的时候,像这种配合特别精妙的英雄组合,就怕被BAN。比如说光法与精灵的组合,选不到精灵,光法不就是个憨憨吗? 丰田THS的优势在于精妙,劣势也在于精妙 —— 它很难单独强化某一方面的性能,也很难充分吸收行业发展的红利。就比如说,丰田HEV车卖得很好,口碑不错;但丰田PHEV就感觉是一个政策产物,卖得不咋样。 廉颇老矣,尚能饭否? 串并联不一样,可以灵活配置。就比如说,DM-i的纯电续航就有60公里、120公里、240公里多个版本 —— 从前电池贵,纯电续航就短一些;现在电池便宜了,把电池怼上去也有消费者买单啊!其实,本田iMMD也可以这么做,只是它没这么做。而丰田THS就不太好这么做。 DM-i加一个P4电机成了DM-p,动力性能瞬间也上去了。其它串并联也可以这么做,丰田THS就不太好这么做。 所以说,丰田THS从一开始就没什么问题, 现在作为HEV也没什么问题。只不过,时代变化太快了,电池价格便宜到就连增程式都能卖出去了,那丰田THS作为一种过于精妙而不好乱改的混动构型,优势缩小、劣势渐显,攻守之势异也。 说起来,串并联和丰田THS相比,最大的优势就是配置灵活性,可以很快地利用汽车电动化带来的红利。你可能觉得,灵活性也配叫做技术优势? 这话可不能这么说,灵活性又叫环境适应性,优胜劣汰的自然选择中,活到最后的往往不是最强大的,而是最灵活的。 2. 一档、二档、三档DHT分别有何优劣? 从1档变成2档、3档,优势是显而易见的: 动力直驱档:速比较大,动力较强,在车速35-65公里/小时介入时,既提高经济性也提高动力性;更高车速下的加速工况下也可介入,以提高动力性。 经济直驱档:速比较小,在65公里/小时以上时介入,可以提高经济性、降低发动机噪音。 概括来说就是:中低速时采用动力档直驱,中高速时采用经济档直驱,以提高经济性;无论中低速还是中高速,急加速时都采用动力档直驱,以提高动力性。 相比1档,2档、3档可以同时提高动力性与经济性,这要基于一个前提: 换档没有代价。 实际情况是,换档是有代价的: 成本上:多个档,多一些机械结构,成本要高。 可靠性:更复杂一些,出问题的可能性也更大。 平顺性:换档时如何做到驾驶员毫无感知,就像纯电车一样? 这需要大量的技术经验 可以看到,成本、可靠性、平顺性都是需要技术积累的,需要犯错后才能改进的。所以,新势力不可能搞2档、3档,只能传统车企来搞。 当然,具体搞得怎么样,还要看最终产品的体验。不能说2档、3档一定就好。 3. 增程式作为“零档”串并联,有何优劣? 增程式作为发动机不直驱的混动形式,根本的优势是可以更加自由地设计发动机:就比如日产e-POWER,它以放弃直连为代价,获得了发动机进一步的专用化、获得更高的热效率(日产目标是实现50%的超高热效率,但站在旁观的角度,不知道这个目标能否实现,何时能实现)。 显然,新势力并不是因为这个原因才使用增程式的,它们主要是想规避增加发动机直驱档位带来的成本、可靠性、平顺性问题。 这些问题,对新势力来说是问题,对传统车企来说也是问题。只不过,对二者来说,问题的难度不一样,所以就做出了不同的选择。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 张抗抗 点击下载 52 个回答,查看全部。 长城汽车柠檬混动 DHT 公布性能实测公布,这款车有哪些亮点? 长城汽车称「柠檬混动 DHT 车型年底登陆巴西市场」,该车型会有哪些亮点?对此你期待吗?

  • 为什么绿豆汤有时煮完是绿色有时煮完是红色?什么因素影响了汤的颜色?

    知乎每日精选 · Mon, 11 Jul 2022 10:08:17 +0800

    「绿豆汤」到底是绿色还是红色,关键得看汤里面的一种成分。 绿豆中的多酚。 在煮绿豆汤时,多酚会发生变化,绿豆汤也随之从最开始的绿色变成了红色。 多酚的变化也分两种。 第一种是多酚被氧化了。 被氧化的多酚吸收光波长发生了变化,所以呈现的颜色也发生了变化。 比如切开的苹果放久了变褐色,茶水放久了变红,久置的面团出现小黑点儿,都是多酚被氧化变色的例子。 第二种情况就是多酚和金属离子发生了络合反应。 有意思的是,以前知乎上还有过绿豆汤是什么颜色的争论,有人说煮出来是黄绿色的,有人说煮出来是橙红色的。 而且这颜色还分地区,不同地区煮出来的颜色还不一样。 其实这就是地方水质差别的原因。 有些地方水质比较软,金属离子比较少,所以煮出来的绿豆汤是原本的颜色。 在水质比较硬的地方,水中的铁离子和多酚发生了络合反应,绿豆汤也就变成了橙红色了。 变色的绿豆汤还能喝吗? 颜色的变化对于安全性没有太大影响,因为变色的过程并不会产生有害物质。 如果从功效来看的话,变色后绿豆汤的抗氧化和降血脂的能力都有了一定程度的下降,因为里面的功效成分 (多酚和黄酮) 都有了不同程度的损失。 绿豆汤,还是喝绿色的营养。 那该怎么煮绿豆汤呢? 1.控制好时间 煮绿豆汤的时候可以先放少量的水,盖上锅盖减少氧气与汤接触。煮大概10分钟之后,汤就变成了碧绿色的了。 这时候的绿豆汤是最有益的,因为绿豆表皮中的多酚、黄酮这些有益成分基本上都溶出来了,而且因为煮的时间短,氧化程度也最低。 所以,可以把这些碧绿色的汤单独倒出来喝,再往绿豆里加水煮到绿豆变烂成绿豆粥。 一份绿豆汤,一份绿豆粥,这样的话营养和美味都不耽误啦。 2.不加碱,不加糖 有研究证明,加碱会升高绿豆汤的pH,让里面的黄酮和多酚成份更容易被破坏,也就降低了绿豆汤的营养价值(抗氧化活性)。 同时,加碱还会破坏里面的多种B族维生素。 为了营养考虑,如果只是为了让绿豆汤变得更稠的话还是不要加碱了,可以考虑加一些淀粉,或者燕麦、糯米之类的食物。 那加糖呢,加糖也不行吗?我们这么多年的绿豆糖水难道是白喝了吗? 看图说话,糖加的越多,抗氧化活性越低。 糖加多了,绿豆汤的渗透压就增加了,多酚和黄酮就不容易从绿豆表皮上溶出来。此外,糖分子也可能与酚类物质发生相互作用,导致绿豆汤的营养价值降低。 当然,没有味道的绿豆汤实在是不好喝。兼顾营养和美味,答主自己煮的时候会在绿豆汤煮好之后,少量地放点糖调调味。 3.蒸馏水+砂锅 这里主要是为了尽量减少绿豆汤里面的金属离子,避免这些离子和多酚的络合反应。 上面的两幅数据图可以看到蒸馏水(DWMS)和自来水(TWMS)的区别,大家有条件的就尽量用蒸馏水吧。 还有煮汤的器具也会有一定的影响,也建议尽量选择砂锅这种非金属的器具比较好。 ——谢谢阅读。 参考文献 陈然,赵建京,范志红. (2012). 煮制条件对绿豆清汤颜色及抗氧化性的影响. 食品科学,33:115-120. 陈 然,王 静,万海静,赵建京,范志红. (2014). 煮制用水pH值及金属离子对绿豆清汤的影响. 食品科学,35:96-99. 知乎用户(登录查看详情) 点击下载 54 个回答,查看全部。 为什么用自来水煮绿豆粥会变成红色的? 为什么绿豆冷冻之后再煮会更好喝?

  • 如何评价动画《新秦时明月》第33集?

    知乎每日精选 · Sat, 09 Jul 2022 18:34:35 +0800

    大家好,《新秦时明月》已经播出第三十三集 首先,在此向大家诚挚地抱歉上周没有正常更新。我们其实一直计划是一口气可以更新完,疫情并不会让我们断更,但结果这次还是意外停了一下。背后原因比较复杂,确实是有一些不可控因素,这里就不展开了,但非常感谢月饼们的耐心等待。 说回这集,月儿果然聪慧,居然短短几句话的交流,就可以看出公输仇居心不良,并不想让天明潜入水下去开机关;但公输仇这个糟老头子果然坏得很,看出天明对月儿的担心,利用这个激将法,刺激天明。天明担心月儿继续下去也会中毒,所以毅然潜入水中去开机关。天明还是忽略了公输仇会不会趁机对月儿造成危险。 还好天明虽然有些冒失,但关键时刻还是非常细心,在最后做选择重要选择的时候并没有相信公输仇,而是选择黑色的拉杆。看来天明和月儿还真是“心有灵犀”。 另外这集比较大的一个看点是,天明潜入水中以后,我们可以看到一些反物理的解算。另外细心观众会发现,水下天明的脸和普通空气中,天明的脸会有一些变化。其实是考虑了水波的折射,这些小细节对于增强水下的真实感提升帮助很大。新秦时我们对动画的部分依然还是追求极致。当然,我们也看到有些地方被大家质疑可能是否用力过猛,这里我们后续会多观察,多注意。 月儿虽然发现了公输仇有问题,但是势单力薄,自然不是公输仇的对手,被公输仇敲晕了。公输仇也别太得意,下一集就会迎来天明的怒火。 这一集的重点是天明下水开机关,但也为下一集的墨核密室埋下了一个伏笔——墨家发现了卫庄的目标其实是巨子和反秦的各路诸子百家,所以准备派出盗跖冲出去报信。可以透露,下集剧情非常高燃,大家可以欣赏到盗跖的电光神行步啦! 相信很多观众非常期待盗跖和白凤的第一回合对决。到底是白凤的凤舞九天快,还是盗跖的电光神行步更快?这个答案在下集就会揭晓,但我能说的是重制后,对于两人追逐戏的细节动作做了更多设计,非常帅。下集非常值得期待哦~ 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 薛小明 点击下载 10 个回答,查看全部。 如何评价动画《新秦时明月》第29集? 如何评价动画《新秦时明月》第 13 集?

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    知乎每日精选 · Fri, 08 Jul 2022 14:36:24 +0800

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红坎岭陶艺馆,中规中矩的中式老建筑(也有说是 泰国 建筑)很多电影的拍摄取景地!免费参观,陶艺住宿单独收费,这里主分为制作陶艺品的地方; 这里是烧窑的地方,做好的成品在这里进行烧制,才算完成第一道工艺。 红坎岭陶源里,陶艺小商品店,可以品尝咖啡,欣赏窗外的风景,环境不错; 星空泡泡屋,沉浸式体验田园生活,一起看星星,可以问馆主借用大大霸气望远镜;还有民宿及帐篷露营区,在这边烧烤、举办各种户外拓展活动; 岭陶艺园陶艺馆内可以去欣赏很多大师及体验者留下的作品,现场会有老师教及讲解,了解陶艺的文化知识。 陶艺制作有很高的技术含量,全 海南 制陶的手艺人也是寥寥无几,所以来这里可以好好学习下,然后尽兴玩玩,体验下自己亲手制作,手里的泥巴会不会听话; 穿上合适的小清新来这里拍照,推荐大榕树下秋千及陶艺品、园区湖景、星空屋、陶艺制作坊等,提醒大家疫情期间做好自我防护!在这里享受大自然的美丽风光,还可以亲临其境,体验制陶的乐趣。 一张合影结束了我们的红坎岭之旅,下次一定带上家里小朋友去玩,之后驱车前往 澄迈 金江的恩农牛大力茶厂参观。 牛大力厂参观 第三站,牛大力茶厂参观 在前往牛大力的沿途,风景特别的美,几个人忍不住去拍了很多照片。 绿油油的稻田,看到的是丰收的喜悦。 不得不说联动云这款车还是很给力的,上山下海都可以,哈哈。记不清这是第几次落地自驾选择用了。 到了之后参观了厂里的工艺流程,品尝了茶,淡淡的甘甜,有点像大麦茶的感觉,这里给大家普及下牛大力,在 海南 以往的听的多的就是关于牛大力酒的产品,茶还是第一次听说,牛大力的别名很多,例如猪脚笠、金钟根、山莲藕等,是一种药材。以根入药,主要成份为蛋白质、淀粉质及生物碱等。 具有平肝、润肺,养肾补虚,强筋活络之功效。适用肾虚,血气不旺,风湿骨痛,经常咳嗽患有急慢性支气管炎及吸烟人士。牛大力在我国主要分布在 海南 、 福建 、 台湾 、 广西 、 广东 等地,产业及开发也处于刚开始,挖掘的空间很大,希望在这个富硒之地牛大力有更好的空间。 中国海南海花岛 从牛大力厂出来就沿着西线高速开车直接来到位于 儋州 市滨海新区的 中国 海南 海花岛用中餐,然后分别游玩体验了童世界海洋乐园、水上王国及五国温泉城,这在安排了2天1晚的时间,但如果真正把整个岛玩透的话建议安排3天2晚的行程才能玩明白,这里也是粗略给大家分享下自己在海花岛的所见所闻所玩的项目,一起来看看这个耗资1600亿的人工岛屿。 海花岛总共由3个岛屿组成,其中1号岛是旅游度假区,这里集主题乐园、度假酒店、购物美食、滨海娱乐、文化演艺等于一体,如景区宣传语那般——全球人向往的文化旅游胜地,让你嗨翻天! 欧堡酒店 我们这次入住的是欧堡酒店,拥有5121间豪华客房,分为森林、海洋、沙漠、冰川4大主题, 我入住的是冰川主题!由4栋单体城堡连接而成的,酒店建筑采用“Y”字型设计,每个房间都拥有绝佳的观景视野,能饱览海花岛璀璨夜景! 进入大厅后,非常的气派,自助式办理入住和传统入住都可以选择,很人性化,还有不定时的互动节目,让等待的时间变得很充实。 每个主题都有自己独特的风格,很适合小朋友去体验。客房根据入住的风格装饰,这次的冰川都是 北极 熊的装饰,很温馨,估计带上小朋友会更兴奋,喜欢。 房间可以看到落日夕阳,不知道你能不能遇到这样的场景呢,内心小激动,自己很幸运,遇到好的天气。 酒店自助海鲜大餐,188元/位,蛮有 海南 特色的,洋浦海鲜,糟粕醋,红鱼饭,这些都是比较有代表性的美食,环境不错,很舒适!用餐地点就在入住酒店的一楼,和晚餐的环境一样,很喜欢里边的 海南 后安粉,种类搭配还是很合理的! 童世界海洋乐园 可以说是 海南 加勒 比风格亲子乐园,来这样带您亲密接触神秘海底生物!占地面积13.5万平方米,拥有先进的人工海洋生态系统,汇聚白鲸、海狮、企鹅、 北极 熊等全球多种海洋生物,让游客与海洋生物零距离接触,是与海洋生物全方位互动的体验式乐园! 这里的游玩特色整理给大家,供参考: 1、内含发现海港、极地世界、热带雨林、深海梦幻三大生态圈等四大主题区域,拥有23项游玩项目! 2、汇聚白鲸、海狮、企鹅、 北极 熊等全球多种海洋生物 3、与海洋生物零距离接触,是与海洋生物全方位互动的体验式乐园! 4、游览体验区分为发现海港区、冰川欢乐剧场、冰川世纪动物展馆、极地世界、热带雨林区、冰淇淋总动员,多媒体互动体验等,每个区域都有自己的独特风格。 带上大小宝贝,一起在蓝色大海里旋转遨游,记得要体验的项目 1、冰川世纪,让你瞬间进入了一个梦幻般的极地世界,开启奇遇之旅。有超级可爱的企鹅、极地大海兽白鲸还有笨重聪慧的 北极 熊; 2、冰川欢乐剧场,看百看不厌的海狮表演,可爱任性,有点小脾气却又通人性; 3、雨林奇观,热带陆地及海洋动物在此齐聚,有食人鱼,巨型蜥蜴及缤纷各异的热带海洋鱼类等; 4、海洋骑士,双层高的海洋骑士旋转木马,满满的都是海洋明星动物座驾。 5、冰淇淋总动员,多媒体互动体验,身临其境穿梭拯救冰激淋。 1、单人票价99元左右,一票通 2、 加勒比海 盗风格的主题乐园,很适合拍照打卡 3、开放时间,10:00-18:00开园;(17:00停止入园) 童世界水上王国 位于海花岛海洋乐园对面,国内首家以海岛雪山为主题的度假型水上乐园,从远处望去,乐园仿佛像是一座高耸雪山般,让处于热带的人有种自然的向往,想去看看这个雪山世界去玩,感受速度与激情,触碰水的凉爽与刺激。水上王国还设置了母婴室、躺椅区、餐饮区多种休闲放松区域,供游客补充能量,惬意玩耍。 乐园占地11万平方米,设有全球18项(套)顶级水上娱乐设施,游玩的项目有巨型造浪池,雪地集结号、暴冰碗、雪山飞龙、尖峰极速、激流过山车、巨蟒魔毯滑道、雪域风暴、冰河漂流等明星项目。水上王国内还设置很多高空项目,雪山漂流河和30米高落差、87°倾角雪山主题水滑道,360°全景观光索道缆车等。 海花岛童世界水上王国,门票及开放时间: 1、单人票价138元左右,一票通(不含高空缆车及其他二销项目费用) 2、五一期间有水上狂欢节节目,可以自行按照时间去玩,还是很好玩的! 3、开放时间,13:00-19:00(最晚入园18:00) 五国温泉城 玩了一天的项目之后,可以来这个地方放松下,海花岛五国温泉城,从水上王国走路5分钟就到啦,集萃 泰国 、 日本 、 土耳其 、 意大利 、 芬兰 5国温泉特色,拥有120多个功能各异的特色温泉池,50余间养生SPA房,20余栋特色温泉汤屋,在这里可以感受下异域之旅,每个馆的汤屋设计都别具匠心。 我们去体验的是 泰国 馆,里边除了温泉还有简餐,真的非常舒服。让游客充分体验异域风情,感受世界温泉文化。 因为到的时间比较晚,只能给大家分享在 泰国 馆的内的图片了,环境很好,馆内分二次更衣,泡好温泉后,有配套很齐全的洗漱区,然后可以换宽松的衣服到休息区,结伴的人一起聊天,还是蛮享受的。 晚餐可以在温泉城享用,可以单点也可以选择套餐,有免费的饮水(胡萝卜汁、青瓜汁), 海南 特色清补凉、菠萝炒饭,还是很不错,搭配合理。 海花岛五国温泉城,门票及开放时间: 1、单人票价108元左右;1.2m(不含) 以下免票,一张全票最多可携带1名身高1.2米(不含)以下的免费儿童入园 2、13:30-23:00;停止售票时间:21:00;停止入场时间:21:00 (01月01日-12月31日 周一-周日) 珍奇特色植物园 是个不错的拍照打卡的地方,里边有珍奇特色植物园200余种。 游客中心,可以休息,还可以购买小食,里边环境很不错,疫情防控做的也很到位,扫码进入。 漫步园中,各种花香袭来,感受大自然的味道,树干如瓶身、树枝却开满木棉花的奇异树种,气味奇臭的铁西瓜可以带上孩子一起感受探索植物世界的奇妙之处。 这里汇聚了如 弥勒 佛树、橡胶榕、树菠萝、象腿树等全球热带珍奇植物。是个情侣拍照,亲子研学的好地方。 海花岛珍奇特色植物园,门票及开放时间: 1、单人票价35元左右;免票人群1.2 米(不含)以下的儿童,最多可携带 2 名免费儿童,陪同人员需购买门票; 2、营业时间:10:00-20:00(19:30停止检票) 3、大家购买门票,一定要注意安排好游玩时间。 海花岛明清商业街 如果还有时间,可以来商业街、饮食街转转,多国风情商业集多种特色店铺于一体,旁边的饮食街有很多的特色美食餐饮,如果想买点折扣低的衣服,可以去新开的奥特莱斯店看看,相信总能选到自己的喜欢的东西。 海花岛游玩注意事项 1、各园区单独售票,门票都是当天有效,也可以购买多园区的联票的游玩方式,里边也有很多的餐饮,供游客选择! 2、重点交通和游玩指南,一定要记得带一份景区导览图,可以少走很多冤枉路! 3、奥特莱斯有COACH、MICHAEL KORS、PINKO、Fila、DKNY等近20家国内外一线品牌。 4、自驾车前往最为方便,如果在海花岛里边游玩,有免费班车和小火车,观光小火车线:欧堡酒店站—风情商业街站—婚礼庄园站—明清风情商业街站—童世界站—欧堡酒店站。运营时间:9:00-22:00,车程:50分钟,发班时间:20-30分钟/班,30元/人。 先来一张龙沐湾的夕阳给大家看看,是不是很梦幻,很想去呀。 龙沐湾滨海公园 海花岛用了一天的时间,隔天中午在欧堡酒店用完餐之后,冰川城堡,去的格外早,算是第一个进去,拍了很多照片之后,开始享用自己的午餐,还是选择有本地特色的米粉、盐焗鸡等,外出自驾游玩,都喜欢清淡点东西,这样不至于半路掉链子。用餐之后就开始我们的龙沐湾之旅。 位于龙沐湾酒店对面的沙滩上,这里是集海滨观光、海上运动、沙滩娱乐为一体。 有海上单车、透明皮划艇、水陆两栖沙滩车、尾波冲浪、沙滩起降式拖伞等涉海娱乐项目,目前只能是自驾车前往。个人很喜欢水陆两栖沙滩车和沙滩起降式拖伞,想玩尾波冲浪怕起不来哈哈,丢人。 晚上我们住在龙沐湾的帐篷,看着夕阳听着海浪声,大家有说有笑就进入了梦想。 龙沐湾是 海南 小众海湾,原生态元素多一点,是国内唯一一个朝向正西的海滩,龙沐夕照是当地有名一景,每当日落时分,夕阳染透时空;长夏无冬,光照时间长,有明媚的阳光、纯净的空气、碧蓝的海水、洁白的沙滩,自然生态环境在世 界首 屈一指。 周边旅游资源丰富,依山傍海,环境优美,距尖峰岭热带原始森林自然保护区仅7公里,可以体验拉网捕鱼,这里的人还是靠海为生; 龙沐湾滨海乐园,游玩注意事项: 1、天气炎热,做好防晒的措施; 2、这里因为是刚开发的项目,所以配套不是很齐全,要做好心里准备; 3、晚上可以入住体验帐篷,配套齐全,与大海相伴; 4、价格的话可以根据自己玩的项目来定哟。 三亚大小洞天 早晨起来,从龙沐湾开车到大小洞天也就差不多一个小时的路程,从机场提车时邮箱满油,在靠近南山的地方给车加满汽油,不的说 海南 的汽油还是真心有点害怕,一箱油大概500元左右。 大小洞天已经来过很多次了,每次都会有不同的感触,每次都在变化中,这次增加了丛林飞车、天涯飞跃、悬崖秋千和彩虹滑道等项目,景区也不再是纯观光型,变成玩心跳,玩刺激的地方。 大小洞天, 三亚 拍照打卡婚纱摄影拍照的好去处,国家5A级景区,我国南端道家文化旅游胜地,自然风光美丽,人文气息超浓厚! 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  • FPS类游戏如何研究它的数值?

    知乎每日精选 · Fri, 08 Jul 2022 11:05:45 +0800

    大家好,我是来自天美《CF手游》的策划senz,我在团队中主要负责武器手感,写这个系列的文章目的有两个: 对于自己,总结过去,积累当下,迎战未来。 对于同行,与君共勉,共同进步,取精去糟。 本文作为三部曲中的基础篇,主要介绍主流FPS游戏中枪械数值的构成,简单分析各个参数的设计目,并总结了一些个人见解,希望能启发到同行的同学。 TTK(Time to Kill) TTK:开第一枪后,子弹全部命中,击杀敌人所需要的时间。TTK越短,枪械理论强度越高。 比如血量是100 AK47伤害是35,射速是0.108秒/发,它的理论TTK就是 (3-1)*0.108=0.216秒 M4A1伤害是30,射速是0.095秒/发。它的理论TTK就是 (4-1)*0.095=0.285秒 但在实际交战中,有很多影响实际TTK的因素,下面就来拆解一下,一颗子弹从发射到命中,中间会经历些什么。 基础伤害 首先是常规的步枪,以大家最熟悉的M4A1和AK47来举例,在CF中,M4伤害是30,AK伤害是35,这5点的伤害,会拉开两个枪型的子弹价值,因为M4是4枪死,AK是3枪死,所以他们的子弹价值就是1/4和1/3的区别。 对步枪来说,每次开火的弹片数是1,但对于某些双持武器和霰弹枪来说,单次消耗的弹片数会大于1 实际伤害=单发伤害*弹片数 射速 每发子弹之间的开火间隔,间隔越小,射速越快,跟伤害共同组成理论TTK。 通常为了保持整体TTK平衡,射速跟伤害是此消彼长的。 距离衰减 随双方交战距离变远,伤害会随距离衰减。但在不同游戏中,衰减曲线需要匹配游戏关卡和枪械调性,并结合游戏3C来进行选择 分段衰减,优点是简单灵活,TTK稳定可控,可以精准控制距离区间的伤害,并确保衰减后的伤害是常数 其余的三种,线性和非线性衰减曲线的选择,主要看设计目的。比如游戏鼓励玩家近距离对枪,那选择图3(非线性衰减-)的曲线,可以让枪械前期伤害衰减迅速,同时搭配游戏中各种加强角色身法的3C机制,如滑铲、翻墙、钩锁、枪托攻击等,最终玩家行为就会比较符合策划的近距离对枪预期。 距离衰减也是区分枪系的重要参数,用来调控玩家的交战距离,影响玩家打法,比如拐角老六 极限伤害距离,某些特殊武器,比如喷火枪,还会用极限伤害距离来控制武器的最远射程,是更粗暴的距离衰减 穿透衰减 交战双方之间如果有可穿透物体,伤害也存在衰减。从市面上主流的射击游戏总结来看,需要考虑下面几个因素: 根据不同枪械确定其可穿透的材质(木头/石头/金属/玻璃/水面/冰块/草堆/人体) 根据不同的材质,分别给定衰减倍率,同时配套给一个最大穿透层数来收敛。一般来说一个BOX算1层,例如一个木箱和一扇木门都算1层。 在不同材质衰减倍率的基础上,再加上厚度的计算,物体越厚,穿透衰减越大。(CSGO引入了这个参数) 穿透衰减除了用来区分枪系,平衡枪械强度外,还会影响玩家对局内信息的重视程度和续航能力。因为穿透会暴露枪线和枪声,大量消耗子弹。 游戏越鼓励穿透行为,玩家对信息越不重视,对续航的要求越高。所以不同游戏要根据自己游戏的需要,调控玩家的穿透行为。 受击部位 子弹命中不同部位,伤害也会有区别。一般都会起码分为头、躯干、手、腿四个部位: 头部伤害>躯干伤害≈手部伤害≈基础伤害>腿部伤害 不同游戏还有可能分得更细: 头:眉心/面/颈 手:腕/臂 躯干:胸/腹/背 腿:大/小腿 冷知识:手游上头部面积太小了,把头部受击框稍微放大点,降低爆头门槛,体验会更好! 命中不同部位会直接影响子弹价值和TTK: 从平衡性角度来说,所有角色的3P受击框应该一致。这里有两个设计方案: 在角色设计之初,就尽量贴合受击框,但是对美术同学会有限制。 参考R6的做法,为了保持命中一致性,在命中非受击框区域时产生一些不一样的视觉/音效。 《彩虹六号:围攻》“健康行动”报告:重构命中区域 _ 游民星空 GamerSky.com​www.gamersky.com/news/201706/912326.shtml 护甲衰减 接着再讲讲防具:防弹衣/头盔。顾名思义,防具就是覆盖在角色受击框上的护甲,一般覆盖躯干和头部。 对于不同游戏来说,防具服务于不同的目的,但基本上都是射击游戏的标配 游戏投放 CSGO、Valorant局内经济购买,是玩法和策略的一部分 COD、PUBG在BR中作为场景掉落道具,是玩法的一部分 CF作为运营道具,拉日常活跃,并回收活跃货币 子弹命中这些受击框的时候伤害会有对应的伤害衰减,直接影响TTK,以M4为例,是否穿防具直接影响是否能一枪爆头: 上面的图都是T-Pose,但实际局内的持枪动作各不相同 比如上面两张图,在正面交战的时候,面对步枪玩家的3P更容易命中无甲的手部,而面对手枪玩家的3P则更容易命中有甲的胸腹,所以3P持枪动作在一定程度上也可以作为枪械的“防御属性”,同时进攻方也会采取不同的游戏行为去针对这种防御属性,比如偷侧身。 子弹飞行轨迹和弹速 Hit-Scan 在传统巷战射击游戏,如CSGO和CF中,全都是激光射线,也叫做Hit-Scan。只要开火瞬间,激光射线跟敌人受击框相交,就算命中。可以理解为是一颗没有重力,速度无限大的子弹。 巷战游戏用Hit-Scan是因为地图小、交战距离短、预期TTK短,选用Hit-Scan更适合玩法。 Projectile 但随着现象级PUBG爆火,大地图BR逐渐成为主流,子弹也变成了有重力和飞行速度的Projectile。在大地图中,远距离对枪场景多,Projectile变成了射击体验的一部分。 重力下坠:根据双方距离,在目标上方开火。 飞行弹速:根据双方距离和目标移动方向,打提前量。 远距离TTK由于飞行弹速的加入而变长,对游戏节奏和玩家行为有影响。 彩蛋1:伤害公式计算 TTK相关的参数有如此多,产生最终伤害之前会有伤害公式的运算。那必然会产生两个问题: 伤害是否取整? 公式运算顺序是否有影响? 首先要确定是否要取整。不取整的优点是会让数值设计的颗粒度更细,与设计预期更相符。但假如游戏中明明白白地告诉了玩家HP=100,并且每次命中还会飘数字,那么建议还是要取整,不然前端显示和后台运算不一致,会让玩家产生疑惑“为什么他打我99我就死了?!” 其次取整的规则,四舍五入、进一、退一,根据自己游戏需要选择。 如果不取整,那无须考虑公式运算顺序的问题。 但如果取整,何时取整就显得很重要,比如下面的表格,取整的时机会直接影响到最终伤害。 所以建议如果要取整,公式中间不要取整,全部用浮点计算,等实实在在算完之后,再最后统一取整(来自一个过来人,血的教训)。 彩蛋2:绝对数值空间 枪械的绝对数值空间其实就是枪械TTK允许减少的程度。 众所周知,CF的英雄级武器和普通武器之间存在数值差异。这里举一个CF手游的例子。 M4A1-雷神的伤害比普通M4的伤害+1(31/30),那为什么AK47-火麒麟不+1(36/35)? 首先,假设火麒麟伤害是36,我们把各个部位的伤害算出来。 可以看到,M4伤害+1对子弹价值没有任何变化,如果射速一致,对TTK没有任何影响。 反观AK,命中4枪腿和命中2枪手+1枪躯干,都从不致死变成了击杀,对TTK产生巨大影响。 那后面能不能出32伤害的M4呢?显然不行,1枪爆头的M4,出了就凉了…… 弹道轨迹 这部分就是玩家口中的“枪械稳定性”,由后坐力和散发组成。 枪械的理论TTK决定了枪械强度的上限,而弹道轨迹决定了枪械强度的下限,以及枪械实际TTK达到理论TTK的难易程度。 除此之外,弹道轨迹还有下面几个作用: 锚定枪械受众,决定一把枪适合新手还是高手 枪械手感差异化的重要因素 在TTK基础上,调控玩家行为和枪械外网K/D数据的手感数值空间 弹道轨迹一般包括两个核心参数:后坐力、散发。主流的弹道模型有两种: CSGO、Valorant、CF:7形弹道 COD、PUBG:S形弹道 因为我工作内容主要是7形弹道,所以下面主要以7形弹道展开。 后坐力 首先解释一下压枪的概念:通过鼠标/手柄/划屏/陀螺仪等输入,去对抗后坐力的过程。 垂直后坐力 垂直方向的后坐力,一般固定向上,所以垂直后坐力是经过练习后能够完全掌握压枪的参数。触发垂直后坐力时,Camera会也会向上旋转一定角度来模拟后坐力。垂直后坐力在打出第一发子弹后触发,并通过Camera上抬来影响下一发的着弹点。 水平后坐力 水平方向的后坐力,概率左右偏转,所以水平后坐力是经过练习后能够部分掌握压枪的参数。跟垂直类似,触发水平后坐力时,Camera会水平旋转一定角度,并影响后续着弹点。水平和垂直后坐力共同组成了枪械的基础弹道骨架。 最大后坐力 7形和S形弹道的区别,主要体现在这里。对于7型弹道来说,必须有最大后坐力来限制弹道骨架;但对于S形弹道来说,则不一定。 对于7形弹道来说,一般前5-8发子弹以纵向后坐力为主。之后达到最大纵向后坐力,然后只触发横向后坐力,并在最大横向后坐力的范围内,概率左右偏转。 而横向后坐力的这个概率,也可以玩出很多花样,也可以玩出很多花样,可以做出正7、倒7、T形等弹道,体现手感差异。 而对于S形弹道来说,可以没有最大后坐力,子弹足够可以达到仰角极限。 S形弹道还可以引入分段的概念,不同子弹区间内的后坐力,可以设计成不一样,调控枪械的强势时期。 后坐力修正 在开火过程中,后坐力不一定是固定的,基础后坐力有一个Base值,后续后坐力在Base的基础上加上一个修正值。这个修正值如果是正数,就会越扫越飘;如果是负数,就会越扫越准。这个主要看枪械定位,和游戏是鼓励点射还是扫射。 1P不同状态下的后坐力修正也不一样,一般1P速度越慢,后坐力修正越小。 像COD这种Locomotion特别强大的游戏,还会有滑铲、趴下、架枪等操作,也会对后坐力修正有影响。 这里也可以根据不同枪系的定位特点,去设计手感差异,让一些枪适合站撸,一些适合跑打。 点射机制 后坐力修正还会受到点射机制的影响,什么是点射机制? 如上面的视频所示,点射机制就是:在冷却时间内再次输入开火指令,后坐力修正也会累积。直到在冷却时间后再开火,累积才会重置,表现就是视频中的速点会越点越飘。 累积值可以小于1,这样可以让累积值的颗粒度比后坐力修正值的颗粒度更细。 冷却时间越短,触发后坐力修正要求的手速越快;累积值越小,触发后坐力修正的子弹数越靠后。两种做法都会让枪械的点射手感更舒服,速点时的后坐力表现更稳定。不同的枪械可以有不同的冷却时间和累积值,灵活使用点射机制,可以塑造多样性的点射手感。 后坐力恢复 后坐力恢复:在后坐力触发后,延迟于后坐力触发的Camera回弹速度,一般单位是°/秒,纵向和横向的恢复可以区分配置。 后坐力恢复对于点射和小连发非常重要,恢复速度越快,越精准。 但对于扫射来说,影响不大,因为扫射过程中基本上不会触发到后坐力恢复。甚至如果枪械的最大后坐力太大,准星恢复对下一次开火还会有负体验,压枪之后镜头会往下掉。 针对这种情况,当玩家压枪时,可以减去对应的Camera角度再进行后坐力恢复,避免对下次瞄准造成影响。比如COD和B4B都做了类似的处理。 但在手游上要注意,如果玩家开启了陀螺仪,最好就不要对压枪做后坐力恢复处理,因为陀螺仪压枪后的手机回正,刚好可以把压枪的操作给抵消。 另外,后坐力恢复不一定会恢复到原点,比如PUBG的弹道,它是恢复到下一发子弹的落点,所以即使是点射也需要压枪。 散发 讲完后坐力,接下来讲散发。 散发:基于后坐力骨架,着弹点一定区域内随机散布。所以随机散发是玩家完全不可控的。 基础散发 散发分布是一个投影在场景里的圆,所以交战距离越远,散发对实际TTK影响越大。 但因为散发是一个玩家不可控的参数,所以如果散发分布过于随机,尤其是当散发的子弹出现在后坐力的反方向时,射击体验就会很差。所以我们要在混沌中创造秩序,给这个圆一定的角度,根据不同的枪械去收敛散发的随机面积。 收敛后的面积应该在后坐力的方向上,因为这样玩家在压枪过程中,同时也在把随机面积拉往Camera中心。经过长时间的练习,玩家能提前让下一发的面积处于Camera中心附近,让玩家觉得枪被他压住了。 这里需要注意,第一枪没有后坐力向量,所以第一发的散发面积是个整圆;同时第一枪如果不准,会降低瞄准和卡点的收益,甚至会让玩家觉得被吞子弹了,所以基础散发的Base值不能太大。(霰弹枪:我呢???) 散发修正/点射机制 和后坐力类似,散发也有修正值,可以越打越散,也可以越打越准,任君选择。同时散发修正也可以受到点射机制的影响,速点越点越飘。1P不同状态下的散发修正也不一样,跟后坐力类似。 但跟后坐力有所区别的是:因为散发存在随机,不可控,所以策划想让这把枪跑打不准,你练多久都没用!所以P90,YYDS!全部起P90!这把继续RushB! 另外是否鼓励跑打也跟游戏调性有关系: CSGO、Valorant强调爆破,信息博弈、技能道具施放,不鼓励大身位干拉,所以移动散发很大,站撸才能打准。 COD强调激爽突突突,本身角色运动能力就强,那就钢枪战个痛快,移动散发较小;CF作为大盘向下沉版的CSGO,既保留了钢枪爽快,也保留了爆破的战术博弈,移动散发也较小。 整体弹道 后坐力和散发都介绍完了,一个完整的弹道就有了。 还是以7形弹道为例,前期的弹道主要压纵向后坐力,考验压枪技巧。 中后期弹道一直在最大横向后座力中间概率偏转,这里除了考验压枪之外,其实还提供了一个容错率,并且随着交战距离越来越远,角色的宽度占横向后坐力宽度的比例会越来越低,子弹覆盖范围会越来越大,但子弹命中的概率会越来越低。 最后加上散发,调控枪械命中率。 从长期的练枪收益上看: 纵向后坐力:能完全掌握 横向后坐力:能部分掌握 散发:无法掌握 所以,针对高玩,要提高压枪难度和上手门槛,但可以通过长期练习掌握,并尽量接近理论TTK;而对新手玩家,要降低门槛,通过无法完全掌握的参数,控制实际TTK分布。 准星 射击游戏必备,永远在Camera中心的视觉提示。 准星颜色 准星默认颜色要根据场景的主色调来选择,玩家玩得最多的地图,比如CSGO的Dust_2、CF的沙漠灰、PUBG的绿岛。准星颜色跟场景主色调的辨识要拉开,所以CSGO和CF的准星默认颜色是绿色,PUBG是白色。 准星扩散 在开火后,准星中间的空隙会扩大,主要有两个作用: 作为开火手感延续的一部分,模拟武器开火后坐力以及回到待机动作的过程。 提示玩家散发随着开火逐渐变化的过程。 所以比较好的手感是:准星扩散速度与开火动作一致、准星缩小速度与开火后摇一致、散发面积与准星空隙吻合。 准星偏移 准星偏移常见于7形弹道,CF、CSGO、Valorant的弹道都有准星偏移的设计。CF里是通过准星下坠实现,CSGO和Valorant是通过着弹点上移实现。 可以看到在扫射到最大纵向后坐力时,下一发子弹会突然与Camera中心脱离,偏移一定的比例,着弹点此时会在准星的上沿。这个现象其实早在CS1.5时代就有,这样设计的目的和好处是什么: 扫射到最大纵向后坐力之后,此时散发已经很大,准星也会扩散到很大,中间空隙过大导致准星已经有点失去了瞄准的作用。但是准星偏移后,着弹点在准星上沿,可以把准星上沿当作一个箭头的作用,指向性更明确,类似于PUBG的三角准星。 扫到最大纵向后坐力后,Camera不再上抬,只会左右偏转。因为横向后坐力存在概率,比较难压,所以玩家在扫到这个阶段时,都会去瞄敌人的爆头线,提高命中收益。而准星上沿,跟敌人头部能更好地重合,瞄准手感更好。 准星的突然偏移需要玩家进行额外的突变压枪,难度更高。 对于大盘玩家,会鼓励他们在5-8发子弹时收枪,别直接跪倒30发,符合爆破信息博弈的游戏调性。 对于高玩,也深挖了压枪体验,不同的枪械可以根据散发有不同的偏移幅度。 所以不管这个准星偏移在CS1.5的时候是不是BUG,现在它已经演变成了射击体验的一环,所以在CSGO和Valorant中都保留了下来。 准星自定义 上面的都是废话,因为准星自定义现在基本上是射击游戏的标配。不管你官配设计得有多好,萝卜青菜各有所爱,玩家说:“我自己调的才是最好的”。CSGO和Valorant的准星自定义系统是最详细最专业的。 但准星自定义里有一个神器:准星不扩散。就是不管怎么开火,准星都不会变。 不扩散的准星,从视觉感官上给玩家一种散发没有变大的错觉,对手感会有提升。并且如果是极致的不扩散准星,还可以清晰地看到弹痕特效形成的弹道轨迹,帮助玩家压枪。 但准星不扩散也有缺点,就是扫射到最大纵向后坐力之后,由于准星偏移,爆头线和准星之间的距离不好掌握。 Valorant给出了两种解决方案: 提供一个额外的外围准星,外围准星的间隔可以设置为常用枪械准星偏移的距离,偏移后用外围准星去压爆头线。 在准星偏移时,上边准星消失。准星消失不仅可以提示玩家准星偏移的时间,还防止准星干扰玩家观察着弹点。 命中反馈 准星还承担了一个很重要的功能,命中敌人的视觉反馈,这个反馈不仅能获取信息,还能加强打击感。命中反馈还可以在爆头或击杀的时候做更强的提示,来跟普通命中区分开。 非腰射准星 上面讲到的准星是腰射HUD准星,但随着主流游戏机瞄和枪匠系统的普及,准星已经越来越写实并多样化。 在玩家举镜/开镜之后,就能看到这些非腰射准星。他们都有一个共同的作用,降低视场角(FOV),看得更远,但视野减少。但其实它们还有很多实用的功能: 举镜后,减小散发或后坐力。 用准星上的基准点提示,计算对应距离的子弹重力下坠。 遮挡玩家视野,影响机瞄手感,是枪械数值空间的一部分。比如COD的GRAU 5.56机瞄视野非常开阔,所以相比于M4,可以省下1个瞄镜的配件给其他部位装配。 Valorant顶级融合。不仅玩法上完美融合了英雄技能和射击,而且射击手感也完美融合了两种习惯。不开镜是传统的准星偏移手感,开镜是指哪打哪的手感。顶级拓盘全民游戏,Valorant真好玩! COD中还有提高敌人视觉辨识的热力和夜视瞄镜,辅助玩家瞄准。 受击上扬/血弧 受击上扬和血弧一般是同时触发的。 受击上扬:被命中时,Camera会有叠加于后坐力的突然上抬,上抬和恢复速度的单位跟后坐力类似,也是°/秒。 受击上扬可以作为进攻属性,命中后给敌人造成的上扬;也可以作为防御属性,被命中后自己的上扬。 不同的枪械可以拥有不同的上扬幅度,尤其是对于狙击枪这种FOV比较小的武器来说,受击上扬是一个非常重要的数值。 命中不同部位,上扬幅度也可以有区别,比如CSGO钉头和普通命中的上扬就有明显的区别,以提高爆头的收益。 血弧:被命中时,在HUD上提示受击的方向,记住这个口诀:上前下后,左左右右。 血弧提示的强度可以根据游戏需要决定。可以只提供瞬间的受击方向;也可以随着玩家镜头转向;也可以让血弧和血线结合,不仅提示来向,还提示丢失/剩余多少血量。 彩蛋:什么枪好压? 首先祭出一张跨时代的图,乔布斯的iPhone4,手指最大可触摸的范围。 从竖屏操作演变到现在的横屏手游,操作热区变成了这样的一个内八热区。 对于键鼠来说也是类似的内八。 因为人体的构造,手指和手肘的关节都只允许内翻,不能外翻,所以往内操作比往外操作要更舒服。所以正7字弹道要比反7字弹道更好压。大家可以在屏幕上比划一下,右图会比左图划起来更舒服。 同样道理,遭遇敌人时,往他的左边横拉,对面也更难命中你。而且往左边横拉还有一个好处,大部分玩家都习惯右手持枪,枪模也可以遮挡他的一部分视野(如果对面是陀螺仪,以上方法没用)。 机动能力 枪械上的机动性数值篇,包括各种速度。 移速 最高移速 不同枪械和当前1P的不同状态,都会影响枪械的手持最高移速 移速是一项攻守兼备的数值: 进攻性:移速快,可以提前卡点,拥有更好的对枪条件,所以开局一般都会切刀跑路。 防守性:移速越快的枪械在横移时,敌人跟枪难度更高。 在地面时,切枪时1P移速就会变成对应枪械的手持移速;但如果在空中切枪,滞空时依然会保留上一把武器的移速,直到落地才会变。所以在横跳拉枪线或者打信息的时候,在空中切枪是更好的选择。 加速度/减速度 刚刚说到的是枪械对应的最高移速,但在启停时,速度不是瞬时切换的,会有对应的加速度和减速度。加减速度越大,移动的操控感会越灵敏,否则会更迟滞。游戏调性不同,启停的加减速度也不同。鼓励跑打的CF加减速度大,鼓励信息博弈的CSGO加减速度小。 所以在CSGO这种移动散发惩罚很大的游戏中,会有急停的操作,在停下来时,额外输入1次反方向移动的指令,加快散发恢复成静止散发的时间。 同时,减速度对散发的影响很大,因为散发对应的是当前状态的散发,所以减速度越小,从移动到静止的时间越长,移动散发恢复到站立散发的时间就越长。 减速度同样可以体现武器定位和手感差异,比如现在要做一把冲锋狙,在散发的考虑上,首先它的移动散发可以比正常的卡点狙更小,同时它的减速度可以比卡点狙更大,这样它恢复到静止散发的时间也就更短,符合其冲锋狙的定位。 除了启停的加减速度,还有受击减速。在CSGO或Valorant这种短TTK和强调战术博弈的游戏中比较常见。受击减速可以让命中方更好跟枪,但是对受击方会有强烈的负反馈,所以这个设计要谨慎选择。 比如说CF作为移动散发比较小的射击游戏,强调钢枪体验,不应该有受击减速,但是CF的“空尖弹”,让它拥有了命中减速的进攻属性,例如EVO系列。而且EVO还是一把高射速的冲锋枪,高射速可以放大命中减速的效果,让EVO更粘人。 受击减速也是攻守兼备的数值,可以针对不同的枪械配置命中减速或受击减速减免。但要注意减速倍率和减速持续时间一定不能叠加,只能下一次命中把上次一次的给重置,不然受击者的负反馈会更加强烈。 切枪速度 切枪 传统的CF、CSGO,切枪是瞬间触发的,切枪结束之后可以开火。切枪速度基本都比换弹速度快,主要是为了在主武器换弹时遭遇敌人,鼓励玩家切副武器。 不同的枪械有不同的切枪速度,以对应其枪械定位的机动性数值,比如: 枪系手枪冲锋枪步枪狙击枪 切枪速度(秒)0.4-0.60.6-0.70.7-0.81.2-1.4 这里主要讲一下狙击枪开火后,用双切来取消开火后摇的技巧。通过测试可以看出,双切和正常开火,在逻辑速度上没有任何的区别,只有视觉上的区别。 但从视觉上,双切没有后坐力的动画,看上去比正常开火更干脆。所以狙击手一般都有开火后双切的习惯。但其实没有人规定双切的速度一定不能比正常开火快,如果游戏鼓励玩家使用这种双切技巧,那完全可以下放一部分数值在这里。 而且即使不双切,狙击枪开火后切刀也可以隐藏拉栓的音效,切刀的音效比拉栓音效小很多,不会暴露自身位置。同时切刀后移速更快,转点更迅速。 收枪 在支持双主武器的游戏中比较常见,比如COD和PUBG,在切出下一把武器之前,还需要播放上一把武器的收枪动画,所以总的切枪时间=收上一把枪时间+切下一把枪时间。同样,根据不同的枪械配置不同的收枪速度。 跑射延迟 出现在COD中,我把它理解为另一种意义上的切枪速度。当1P从奔跑(Shift)或战术奔跑(Shift x 2)到开火所需要的时间,战术奔跑因为移速更快,所以延迟也会更久。 换弹速度/弹量 先说一下弹量。在弹量充足的前提下,射速越快,玩家的空枪惩罚越低,枪械的实际TTK越容易接近理论TTK。但如果弹量不足,会适得其反,因为换弹惩罚太大,反而会让实际TTK越难接近理论TTK。所以弹量对高射速枪械的影响比较大。 而当子弹打空或者玩家主动触发换弹时,玩家需要等待枪械的换弹时间结束后才能开火。这里通常包含了逻辑换弹速度和表现换弹速度,一般有3种做法: 逻辑和表现换弹速度一致,如CF,没有花里胡哨的技巧和操作,在换弹过程中摁住开火,换弹结束后自动开火,简单下沉的做法。 逻辑比表现换弹速度快,但不能通过开火指令打断表现换弹后摇,如CSGO,一般会在弹匣插入枪身瞬间逻辑换弹速度结束,给玩家养成视觉手感习惯。在逻辑换弹完成后也可以通过切刀快速转点,或用双切来提升换弹手感。跟狙击枪的开火双切类似,换弹双切的绝对速度跟正常读完后摇并没有区别,但如果鼓励双切,可以下放数值。 跟上面类似,但在逻辑换弹结束时,可以再次输入开火指令打断直接开火,如CODM,简化了双切操作的同时,保留了准确掌握逻辑换弹速度玩家的优势,也更符合手游大盘用户的门槛。 开镜速度 ADS(Aiming Down Sight),在CF、CSGO中叫开镜,因为只有一个HUD;在COD、PUBG中叫举镜,因为会直接用武器的1P模型举起来开镜。这里统一叫开镜速度。常见的做法有两种: 无开镜时间,如CF端游和CS1.5的大狙。因为是瞬间开镜,所以散发也会瞬间从腰射散发变成开镜散发,如果几乎同时输入开镜和开火指令,可以达到瞬镜的效果(CSGO的瞬镜一直都是不准的)。 在开镜时间内开火,散发逐渐从腰射散发减小为ADS散发,如COD。针对不同的枪械定位,配置不同的开镜速度,跟切枪速度类似,作为枪械的机动性数值。 但逻辑开镜速度可以跟表现开镜速度区分开,还是以冲锋狙为例,表现开镜时间比逻辑开镜时间长很多,所以在动画完全开镜前开火,散发也比较小,可以满足其冲锋狙的定位。 结语 假如你已经对上面的内容了如指掌,成为了一个新射击项目的枪械负责人,你还应该具备什么能力? 首先未来的新射击游戏爆款会是什么?以史为鉴,我们先来看下过去几年市面上射击游戏的特点和趋势: 主流的射击游戏从2017年开始就变成了两条主赛道:巷战和BR,而过去5年已经没有第三条主赛道,未来的5年在现有的硬件条件下,也不太可能出现“元宇宙射击游戏”。而过去5年里也不乏有各自赛道内的细分品类横空出世,在细分品类也成为了红海市场的情况下,未来5年的爆款射击游戏大概率是是这两条主赛道的集大成者,就像今年的老头环。 而爆款从来都不是横空出世,老头环有魂系列的前作积累,CSGO有CS1.X的积累,PUBG有H1Z1等BR游戏的积累。所以未来的爆款,也需要在过去5年的细分品类中,提炼出各自玩法复杂度设计。 根据这些提炼的要点,明确各自的设计目的,并用它们来构建一个预设的单局和长线玩法循环,去整体规划枪械体系,服务核心玩法,打造独特的枪械体验,迎接未来的挑战。 基础篇讲完了,文中的思路大家可以取其精华,去其糟粕。 最后祝屏幕前的你,有朝一日做出自己的3A射击游戏,成为STG界的老头环! 下集预告 枪械数值跟游戏3C密不可分,枪械体验基于3C体验,两者相辅相成。所以下一篇我会主要讲讲射击游戏中的基础3C手感,下面是一些重点内容的关键词: 新游的灵敏度、辅助瞄准怎么选、怎么做、怎么调优 如何通过3C给玩家创造竞技深度 近战、投掷道具的差异化体验 如果对以上内容感兴趣,请后续关注:《枪是怎样做成的【进阶篇】——3C手感玄学揭秘》 互动环节 上面说的都是我自己的理解,不是绝对正确的,让我们在评论区互相启发! 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 腾讯天美工作室群 点击下载 7 个回答,查看全部。 竞技类 fps 游戏到底是否都把爆头设计为秒杀? FPS游戏如何维持手感?

  • 汽车上的48伏轻混系统的原理是什么?它的用处大吗?

    知乎每日精选 · Thu, 07 Jul 2022 15:22:10 +0800

    精华预告:今天我要谈的是这个: 首先写出我的观点: 48V弱混是一个小而美的技术,它有效弥补了内燃机最重要的一处缺憾,但是可惜在中国,它遇到了一个叫“双积分”的恶魔。 48V弱混,又叫MHEV,是混合动力系统中电气化程度最低的一种模式。很多人认为48V轻混就是P0的BAS系统,其实并非如此。48V MHEV理论上有多种模式,包括P0/P1/P2/P3/P4均有设计方案。比较常见的是P0和P1方案。 P0- 皮带驱动架构 P0模式是将电机通过皮带与内燃机连接,在前端附件系统上,它可以实现的功能(不同机型可能实现的功能范围略有不同)包括: 怠速启停功能 行驶中的启停功能 发动机载荷的调整(通过电机的助力或发电,将发动机的负载向经济区偏移) 加快扭矩响应 总输出扭矩提升 巡航工况电机驱动 能量回收 制动能量再生 一般来说P0的电机可以提供最大50Nm的扭矩,电机最大功率在12-14kW左右,持续功率在2.5-3.5kW左右。 我之前介绍过的上汽通用升功率破百的阿凡达1.5T就是配的48V搭上了昂科威S这个级别的SUV,而且动力性让你根本想不到这是1.5T。尤其是启停功能的响应,完全颠覆你在靠启动电机实现启停的车辆上感受到的自动启停的感受。而且它更可靠,效率更高。 此外其他主机厂的案例还包括: P1-曲轴电机方案 电机直接连接到曲轴的 P1 架构是本田在其第一代集成电机辅助 (IMA)技术中采用的解决方案。电动机在车辆减速期间用作发电机,用作发动机启动器,在车辆加速期间用作电动机(辅助发动机)。 该方案的最大优势之一是电动机可以提供比基于P0:BAS附件系统更高的扭矩,因为没有皮带打滑的限制。 它的缺点是:由于电机和曲轴之间没有速比,因此对电机的扭矩和效率要求非常苛刻。 P1-48V的典型产品包括: 本田 Insight Hybrid 2009(采用集成电机辅助技术)、梅赛德斯奔驰 S400 Bluehybrid 2010 P0和P1结构由于在发动机测,因此一个较大的弊端是它们无法实现在机械上与发动机脱开,并直接从车轮侧获得能量。这就导致了P0和P1在对电机的利用、能量回收的程度以及对电机扭矩的利用方面存在很大的局限性。 此外,在滑行期间,在发动机关闭的情况下(离合器与发动机脱开)回收电能是不可能的。 采用P2/P3/P4的48V就可以避免这些缺憾,并充分利用这些能量。 但是,这样的架构成本较高,而且48V的电压限制了电机的性能。反过来说,既然我都选择了如此复杂的结构,为什么是48V?所以48V的P2/P3/P4结构的实际产品比较少,主要是一些供应商开发的解决方案。 我们把48V的各种变种谈完了,接下来我们还是围绕P0-48V谈谈这个系统吧。 首先我们谈优点,主要有三大优点: 小而美的解决方案: 48V没有破坏原来的动力总成生态,采用电机辅助的方式解决了内燃机一个核心痛点:没有能量回收功能。其实内燃机的效率可以做的很好,但是由于动态驾驶以及传统内燃机没有能量回收,因此内燃机燃烧能量(燃油)好不容易提起来的速度被刹车的热量完全消耗掉了。 燃油效率的提升:除了前面提到的能量回收功能,P0-48V可以实现发动机负载的移动也可以获得燃油耗的收益。 启停功能的平顺化:减少了传统启动电机靠齿轮啮合的冲击启动,采用皮带电机带动更加平顺。 其实最重要一点,为什么是48V?因为48V是欧洲实践下来平衡人体安全和电机效率的一个安全电压平衡点。因此让48V的车子的电气结构不需要按照高压电的相关标准规格进行人体安全的防护级别。这就可以节省很多的成本。 HEV的电压在200-240V左右。微型电动车的电压一般在96V以上,高性能纯电动的电压在400V以上,作为参考。 48V从2017年开始,就曾被大量的咨询机构、资本运作团队看好,认为在中国不断压榨法规油耗的情况下,48V肯定会爆发式增长。然而很遗憾,在中国他们遇到了一个怪物,叫双积分法规。双积分硬生生的把48V拖了三年不知,很多企业,包括合资企业,从2018年开始就开发并完成了48V的准备,但是就是不上市,理由就是按照中国的法规账面算不平。 48V系统在很多市场宣传的时候,一般都声称节油率可以达到14%以上,然而这些成绩都是建立在老的大发动机上的成果。随着内燃机的小排量化和节能话,到2018年测试了大量的机型发现,48V的节油率只有8%左右,甚至以下。那么也就是说,对于一款轿车来说,48V系统的整车节油只有0.4L左右。实际上大部分车根本做不到0.4L,只能到0.3L附近。 然而问题是48V系统的系统投入过大,差不多一套新增系统的成本大几千,结果就是0.1L油耗改进对应的48V系统投入超过了1000元。而一般来说,车企的0.1L油耗改进的可接受成本在600元左右。 更可怕的是双积分政策的影响,由于双积分政策下,尤其是纯电动汽车两处杠杆积分的特点,使得节能发动机的节能技术显得没有性价比,还不如直接卖一些微型电动车,以0油耗来稀释自己的燃油耗积分,而且还能卖新能源积分。 0油耗已经够可怕的了,而且在2018-2019年,还可以按照3倍数量进行稀释! 看上面的计算表格: 对于一个10辆车的简化车队模型,可以看到我只要投入1辆纯电动汽车,就可以让整个10辆车的车队的平均油耗下降25%! 我再说一遍,对于一个轿车的车队,我只需要将10%的数量更换为纯电动汽车,就可以实现整个车队25%的法规油耗降低!如果这是一个SUV或者MPV的高油耗车队,稀释的比例将会更为恐怖! 如果这这辆电动车按照40kwh带电量计算,一般额外投入的金额就是电池包的成本,那就是40kwh*1200元/kwh=4.8万元人民币。而且当时的国家补贴还有几万元。那么投入成本就更低了。而且我还同时拿到了燃油耗积分和新能源积分。 而如果我把钱投入做48V,其结果是:即便我把所有的车队全部变成48V,我依然是负积分,更可怕的是我的投入还比纯电动都大,而且对新能源积分毫无帮助,只会是严重负分。 这是2019年的双积分核算结果,可以看到,燃油车基本是越野车和SUV的北汽,车队平均燃油耗只有1.12升,而混动占了一半多的广汽丰田,以1.5%的新能源汽车的比例依然能拿到燃油耗积分,但是还是拿不到新能源积分。 所以双积分给中国企业指明了一条道路:只要做小电动车稀释积分,就可以让燃油车滥排,不需要开发节能燃油技术。这就是为什么中国的双积分政策是一部恶法。 在这样的恶法之下,中国的48V的推广,被整整拖延了超过4年,而且未来的发展也将依然受制于性价比。只能寄希望于未来在碳计算的背景下,基于碳计算的碳积分可以拨乱反正,彻底终结双积分的XX逻辑。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com JackyQ 点击下载 53 个回答,查看全部。 中国目前在电动车行业换道超车,是否有可能发展电动飞机解决航空发动机问题? 汽车底盘技术在未来还有怎样的发展趋势?

  • 比亚迪推出了 DM-i、吉利推出了雷神、长城有了柠檬 DHT,国产混动技术究竟是什么水平?

    知乎每日精选 · Thu, 07 Jul 2022 15:18:31 +0800

    这个问题,北航的徐向阳教授在今年刚刚发表的一篇论文专门提到了这些系统的对比。我个人对这个文章研究后对其技术分析观点也很认可,所以就直接编辑论文的核心内容了。 我适当节选一下,方便阅读,关于本论文具体研究成果内容沟通,请联系 北航的 刘艳芳老师,liuyf@buaa.edu.cn,18513557198 如下内容表述,均来自于北航徐向阳教授团队的研究成果。 中国自主混动技术的研究起步于吉利的双模功率分流混动系统,但产业化很不顺利,后来吉利在其7DCT的基础上,集成P2.5电机,推出了P2.5-7DCT并联混动变速器,2021年吉利推出了雷神混动系统,发布了国际上首个发动机3挡驱动的串并联混动变速器3DHT。 2008年,比亚迪推出第一代混动变速器,采用双电机串并联方案;2013年和2018年比亚迪推出第二代和第三代P3-6DCT并联混动变速器;比亚迪最新一代混动变速器DM-i则是单挡串并联混动变速器。 长城首先在7DCT和9DCT、9AT的基础上,推出了P2-7DCT和P2-9DCT、P2-9AT并联混动变速器,2021年又推出了发动机2挡驱动的串并联混动变速器2DHT--柠檬混动变速器。 2008年北京奥运,长安汽车投入混动车型开展示范化运营,2017年和2018年分别推出了搭载P2-7DCT的逸动PHEV和搭载P134串并联电四驱的CS75PHEV量产车型,2021年最新推出的蓝鲸iDD混动系统,采用P2-6DCT并联混动变速器。 奇瑞2021年发布了3挡串并联混动变速器鲲鹏混动系统。广汽在GMC一代单挡串并联混动变速器的基础上,2022年推出了GMC二代2挡串并联混动变速器。上汽第二代EDU在2019年发布,采用的是P2.5路线的单电机并联混动系统。目前主流国产汽车厂商均推出了各自的最新一代混动系统,可谓百花齐放,各家技术均各不相同,实车表现相对各自的前一代产品均有明显优化。 比亚迪DM-i(_单挡,DHT)、长城柠檬混动(两挡,2DHT)、吉利雷神(三挡,3DHT)和长安蓝鲸iDD(P2-6DCT)。尽管是4款混动变速器,其实就是两大类,一类是采用双电机的串并联混动变速器(比亚迪DM-i、长城柠檬、吉利雷神),另一类是采用单电机的并联混动变速器(长安蓝鲸iDD)。串并联混动变速器和并联混动变速器的构型示意图如图1示。 混动变速器的技术和产业基础是传统自动变速器,各国技术路线的选择与其技术基础和产业基础密切相关。 由于丰田有爱信AT技术基础,对行星排应用得心应手,因此丰田是基于行星排的功率分流型混动变速器(THS);而本田的AT技术是基于定轴齿轮传动,因此本田的混动变速器是基于定轴齿轮传动技术的串并联混动变速器(i-MMD)。 在欧洲,ZF是全球最大AT变速器企业之一,大众则是最早推出DCT的企业,因此以德国为代表的欧洲的主流技术路线是:P2-DCT/AT并联混动。 韩国的技术路线与欧洲相似。美国通用是AT变速器的鼻祖,对行星排的运用更是非常娴熟,因此以通用为代表的美国的技术路线是基于行星排的双模功率分流型混动变速器。 中国自动变速器技术路线百花齐放,因此混动技术路线也是多元化,既有P2/P2.5-DCT/AT并联混动变速器,也有不同发动机和电机驱动挡位数量的串并联混动变速器(DHT)。 混动技术路线的多样化表明:混动变速器技术路线有技术和产业基础的传承,不同混动技术路线各有优势和劣势,没有最好的技术路线和产品,只有最适合企业自身优势和车型的技术路线和产品。 为了对插电混动技术路线的性能有直观认识,考虑自主PHEV混动技术路线的代表性和PHEV车型的市场表现,选择比亚迪DM-i(单挡,DHT)、长城柠檬混动(两挡,2DHT)、吉利雷神(三挡,3DHT)和长安蓝鲸iDD (P2-6DCT)进行对比。这四款PHEV混动变速器的构型简图、工作模式/挡位逻辑简图、发动机和驱动电机等的关键技术参数见图2。 各款混动系统特点总结如下。 1.长安蓝鲸iDD混动系统 蓝鲸iDD混动系统采用了S-winding绕组技术的低速大扭矩电机,发动机在4款发动机中输出扭矩是最高的,再加上6个直驱挡位,使蓝鲸iDD的起步和中高速加速性能都很优秀。6个直驱挡使发动机直驱的动力响应性更好,亏电行驶时,驾驶感受与燃油车几乎完全相同;纯电行驶、特别是中高速亏电行驶时,借助多档纯电驱动,驾驶感受好于串并联构型,这使蓝鲸iDD混动系统特别适合喜欢长途旅行、对动力响应要求快、驾驶感受追求高的消费者。 并联混动属单电机混动系统,比串并联混动少了一个电机及控制器,所以蓝鲸iDD混动系统受电机和电机控制器原材料成本影响波动小,并可在传统变速箱基础上通过改造升级实现,开发成本较小,综合性价比高。得益于蓝鲸发动机的高热效率和iDD混动变速器高效率设计技术(智能双电子油泵、高压液压系统等),和发动机具有更多的直驱挡位,iDD的燃油经济性也很优秀,UNI-K 2.075吨车重,NEDC循环亏电油耗百公里仅5升。虽然iDD将高集成度三离合器P2模块与6DCT高效集成,但6DCT轴向尺寸较大,影响其轴向紧凑性,结构复杂度也比串并联混动系统要高。 2.比亚迪DM-i混动系统 比亚迪DM-i是国内最早大批量产业化应用的新一代插电混动系统,也是目前市场上占有率最高、知名度最高的插电混动系统,因此,其产品和技术的成熟度在四款混动系统中是最成熟的。大容量电池插电混动技术在中国市场异军突起,比亚迪DM-i是开拓者,比亚迪DM-i为插电混动技术市场化和串并联混动技术路线被市场认可做出了重大贡献。另外,比亚迪DM-i发动机和电机都是单挡驱动,因此,其结构最简单,工作时没有挡位切换,只有工作模式切换,换模换挡控制简单、换模换挡平顺性优秀。 尽管如此,由于DM-i发动机和电机仅1个挡位,纯电驱动不能改变传动比,增加电驱动能力,这影响了其动力性和纯电驱动性能,尤其在低速爬坡和高速超车的场景的影响更明显。另外,在轻量化设计方面,尽管DM-i结构简单,但系统重量并没有明显优势。 3.长城柠檬混动系统 长城柠檬混动系统也属于串并联混动系统,发动机有2个挡位,电机1个挡位,与比亚迪DM-i相比,发动机有更多的高效直驱工作时间,燃油经济性也表现更好。与其他三款混动系统相比,长城柠檬混动系统的各个性能没有最好的,但也没有最差的,各项指标都是处于较好的水平,非常的均衡,这种均衡性的设计本身就是很大的挑战。 与比亚迪单挡串并联和吉利3档串并联混动系统相比,长城柠檬混动系统应该是性价比最高的串并联混动系统。因此,长城柠檬混动系统的设计富有中国智慧,具有典型的中国文化特征:中庸,但不平庸,与长城柠檬和摩卡系列车型定位非常匹配。 4.吉利雷神混动系统 吉利雷神混动系统是世界上第一套发动机3挡电机2挡的串并联混动系统,巧妙地利用了行星变速机构功率密度高、传动路线多、离合器和制动器与电机嵌套设计等集成化设计手段,实现了轴向尺寸仅有354mm、重量仅120kg的高紧凑性、高集成化和高水平轻量化设计。 由于发动机有3个直驱挡位、电机有2个挡位,使雷神混动系统的燃油经济性和纯电驱动性能都很优秀。但两个行星排、两个离合器和两个制动器的传动方案,增加了系统的复杂度和控制的难度,也增加了系统的制造成本。另外,吉利雷神混动系统是这四款插电混动系统推向市场最晚的,其产品还需要更多的市场考验。但好饭不怕晚,作为国际上目前技术上最先进的串并联混动系统,相信吉利雷神混动系统在未来会有很好的市场表现。 综上所述,自主四款混动系统得分非常接近,各有优势和特色,可以说这四款混动系统代表了中国自主混动系统不同细分技术路线的最高水平。 结论 (1)串联、并联、混联三种技术路线各有优缺点。混动技术路线选择通常是企业结合自身资源优势、混动技术特点、产品属性需求、成本等综合考虑而做出的最适合自身企业的结果。 (2)混动技术路线多样化是国内外共同的发展趋势,不同混动技术路线各有优势和劣势,没有最好的技术路线和产品,只有最适合企业自身优势和车型的技术路线和产品。消费者在混合产品选择时,也需要结合自身的需求进行混动产品的选择。 (3)对串并联混动系统,发动机挡位数量的增加比电机挡位数量的增加对改善经济性贡献更大;电机挡位数量的增加比发动机挡位数量的增加对提高动力性贡献更大;2挡或3挡串并联混动系统性能更优。对于并联混动,挡位数量的增加,也会改善动力性和经济性,但6-8挡之间相差很少。因此,并联混动6挡是性价比最高的方案。 (4)无论是串并联混动还是并联混动,发动机热效率提高5个百分点,WLTC亏电工况下,整车油耗可以降低10个百分点以上。因此,提高发动机热效率是提高各类混动系统燃油经济性最有效的手段。 (5)总体而言,当前市面上的串并联和并联混动系统均是完成进化的第二代、甚至第三代产品,相对上一代产品的整车表现均有明显提升。自主插电混动技术路线百花齐放,串并联和并联等各种技术路线优势互补,自主混动系统技术和产品关键技术指标总体上都已达到国际领先水平,在国内插电混动的市场占有率也遥遥领先于外资品牌。自主插电混动已经成为中国汽车工业突破卡脖子技术、从跟跑到并跑再到领跑的成功案例,为中国汽车工业从汽车大国走向汽车强国和汽车工业双碳目标的早日达成做出了重要贡献。 以下内容是我的部分: 评论区我完全打开状态,大家都有很多意见要讨论,请保持理性,不要捧一踩一。这个回答我会保持讨论区打开。 本月我的其他动力系统的回答,可以补充大家对于发动机和混动的一些信息: 醇电混动专用发动机的工作原理是什么?未来醇电混动会取代燃油混动吗? 谁能很全面的解释一下汽车的排量、马力、功率、扭矩之间的关系以及作用 理想L9的油耗到底以哪个为准,WLTC 还是 CLTC? 增程式发动机与传统发动机有什么区别? 如何看待余承东建议尽快淘汰纯燃油车,并表示增程车比燃油车省大概一半油? 如果汽车油箱里加入75%的酒精会怎样? 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com JackyQ 点击下载 52 个回答,查看全部。 长城汽车柠檬混动 DHT 公布性能实测公布,这款车有哪些亮点? 长城汽车称「柠檬混动 DHT 车型年底登陆巴西市场」,该车型会有哪些亮点?对此你期待吗?

  • 谁能很全面的解释一下汽车的排量、马力、功率、扭矩之间的关系以及作用?

    知乎每日精选 · Thu, 07 Jul 2022 15:17:37 +0800

    在我们开始所有的介绍之前,我们先明确一个概念: 一台发动机的输出能力,取决于他的进气能力。 我们再说一遍: 一台发动机的输出能力,取决于他的进气能力。 好好理解这句话,能帮助你理解很多汽车发动机的概念。 汽车发动机是一种内燃机,是燃料在缸内燃烧,形成高温高压气体推动活塞做功,并将活塞的往复运动转换为曲轴的旋转运动,从而输出机械能的一种机械。 我们经常说的一个词,叫做加油。这让人产生一种错觉,当我们需要提升发动机动力的时候,只要往缸内多喷油就好了。 然而实际上,当我们踩下汽车油门的时候,实际调节的是发动机节气门体的开度,这个东西的作用是让发动机进入更多的空气。而只有当发动机确认进气已经变多了之后,才会增加喷油量,然后让你感觉到动力的提升。 当你理解了这一点,我们的讨论才能继续下去,因为后面的所有内容,都是在讨论发动机的进气问题。 首先我们谈排量。 发动机的排量是一个纯物理空间的概念, 而 具体的物理意义就是活塞从上止点移动到下止点,之间发动机缸内的物理空间,就是排量。 有回答认为排量代表的“每行程或每循环吸入或排出的流体体积”。这个观点从某种意义上来说是错误的,或者至少是定义不完全的。因为对于气体来说,体积这个概念必须要与温度和压力的概念同时存在。 排量仅仅是一个物理空间定义,并不等于实际吸入空气的量,更不等于排出燃烧后气体的量。 最简单的例子:2.0T和2.0L排量都是2.0L,可是2.0T比2.0L的功率高50%左右。这里面的差别的根本来源并不是2.0T比2.0L多喷了50%的油,而是实际多进了50%的空气。 充量系数的定义: 将每循环吸入气缸的空气量,换算为进气管状态(压力/温度)的体积V1,这个体积与单缸物理排量的比值,叫做充量系数。 进气管系数的定义:将进气管状态(温度/压力)下的单位空气量,换算为环境大气压/环境温度下的体积,将后者除以前者,得到的数值就是进气管系数。 简单的图解如下: 如果我们把环境大气压/温度等同于标准大气压和温度,那么我们就可以把新鲜空气的体积和空气量建立标准的对应关系。那么排量对于发动机做功能力的影响,以及我们能够做的事情就一目了然了。 再次回忆一开始我说的话:一台发动机的输出能力,取决于他的进气能力。 发动机的排量,是一台发动机做功能力的物理基础。在相同的技术配置下,排量越大,发动机的功率扭矩输出能力越大。 但是,排量只决定了体积,再回忆一下前面我说的: 对于气体来说,体积这个概念必须要与温度和压力的概念同时存在。 看看这张图: V2的大小受到了Vs的直接影响。但是V0的大小不仅取决于V2或者Vs,还取决于P2和T2与环境温度与压力之间的差异。 简单的来说,在相同的排量下,发动机每循环实际吸入缸内的空气量,还和进气的温度T2,和进气的压力P2相关。进气温度越低,进气压力越高,实际进气量就越多,发动机的做功能力就更强。 首先我们谈进气压力。 对于自然吸气发动机来说,吸气的所有动力都来自于发动机吸气冲程形成的真空度,所以优雅的设计进气歧管,千方百计地减少进气阻力,特别是充分利用进气谐振,且避免进气脉冲对进气效率地干扰变得非常重要。一般来说1.5L以上的发动机就会采用可变长度进气歧管来进行优化。 这就是为什么,自然吸气发动机往往有一个很复杂和体积看起来很大地进气歧管结构,而增压发动机则比较简单。 增压发动机就简单粗暴了,直接增压就完了,减少了很多在进气歧管方面做的气流方面的研究。 此外,阿特金森循环与米勒循环这类通过调节气门机构,从而令进气门在进气冲程提前关闭,或者排气门在压缩冲程开始后继续打开,从而实现减少实际进气量,并进而实现膨胀比大于压缩比的这类情况也会带来实际进气量的不足,或者说排量与实际进气量的差异扩大的情况发生。 接下来我们谈温度T2的控制 简单的来说,就是要尽可能的降低进气的温度,从而提升进气的密度。 特别是对于增压发动机,整车从环境中吸取的空气,在被废气涡轮增压的过程中,会被废气温度所加热,导致进气温度高,并进而导致进气的密度不够,相同体积下的实际进气量少。所以需要进行冷却,发动机的这个结构叫做中冷器。 一般的发动机的中冷器采用的是空空中冷,就是用空气冷却的中冷器冷却进气。这个东西一般是归属于整车前舱结构。大概长这个样子: 空气冷却的效果肯定没有水冷的好,对于高性能发动机来说,这几年水冷的比例越来越高,进一步提升了扭矩响应。(下图右上角) 我们总结一下: 单缸的排量是发动机活塞上下行程之间缸内物理空间,它是一台发动机进气量的基础。通过增压、减少进气阻力,调整进排气的气门型线本身及相位策略等方式来改变实际进气压力,通过中冷器等方式来改变进气温度,可以进一步的改变实际的进气量。而实际进气量决定了发动机的性能。 接下来我们来说说马力、功率和扭矩。 马力是一个功率单位 最早的马力的定义是:一匹拉力为180磅的马能在一小时之内将一架半径12英尺的水车拉动144圈,计算为33000英尺•磅/分钟,他就命名其为1马力,换算成现在就是746W。 功率和扭矩的定义: 其实学术叫法应该是发动机的有效功率,定义是:发动机在单位时间内所作的有效功。 发动机的有效功率是通过测功机测试在特定工况下,发动机输出的扭矩Ttq和发动机的转速n而得到的。功率=扭矩*转速 如果有效功率Pe的单位是kW,而扭矩Ttq的单位是Nm,转速n的单位是rpm(转/分钟),那么公式是 扭矩是一种旋转力矩,而功率要考虑的是单位时间的做功的总量。 很多人纠结功率和扭矩,本质是不理解看一辆车子的性能怎么样,到底是看功率还是看扭矩。 2019年,当时的38号车评专门就这个问题和很多人进行了讨论,他想要说明的是:车辆的零百加速主要由功率而不是扭矩决定。发生这个讨论的原因,是德系的车辆一般采用增压等方式来提升低速扭矩响应,但是功率一般并不高(这几年更是快速下降),但是很多大排量自吸发动机是功率更高。国内的很多车企也在学习德系的方法。但是38号认为,功率才是决定车辆性能,尤其是零百加速的表现。 这个问题看起来简单,但是由于车辆存在变速箱变速换挡策略,以及发动机是需要将最高功率、最高扭矩以及扭矩曲线结合来看才能得到结果,所以其实是很难回答的一个问题。 我结合我们的实际开发经验,给出2个简单粗暴的结论: 0-40加速,扭矩优先;40-100加速,功率优先。0-100加速,功率优先。 扭矩不仅要看最高扭矩,还要看扭矩随转速的扭矩曲线。将扭矩和峰值和扭矩曲线的平台宽度结合在一起来看,就能够将功率和扭矩与车辆性能挂上钩了。 其实德系为什么对低扭这么执着,是由德国的国情带来的,因为我曾经有一款发动机,是原计划到欧洲销售的,欧洲的同事当时给我发了一些欧洲市场需求。其中有一个我印象很深刻,欧洲市场有差不多10%的份额来自于公司用车,公司用车的司机很关心在启动后一脚油门的加速响应,这是低速扭矩的主要作用范围,所以不断地要求改进最高扭矩的最低转速以及扭矩响应性。 以我之前写的为通用全新1.5T与市场同级性能对比文章可以作为一个更加详细的参考: JackyQ:同级功率输出地表最强 支持OTA升级的燃油平台 - 万字解析通用第八代Ecotec全新1.5T的“阿凡达”计划 -------以下为引文--------- 在动力性对比方面我想要谈3点: 1. 动力性功率优先还是扭矩优先? 2. 低扭响应受到什么影响;3. 扭矩是光看一个最高扭矩吗? 为了直面问题,我们先从第3点:扭矩曲线的调教来谈起: 我们将这四款发动机连同本田1.5T的扭矩数据放在一起,可以看的更明显: 解读一下这张表代表了什么: 橙黄色的是奇瑞1.6T,在扭矩方面排量优势给了它峰值扭矩上的一些优势,但是峰值扭矩的出现时间比较晚,峰值扭矩平台为2000-4000rpm。排量给了总扭矩的优势,但又带来了增压器扭矩爬升迟缓的问题,进气端没有做太多的优化。总体表现来说中规中矩。(奇瑞数据来自于奇瑞发布1.6T的PPT图,原图就表现出峰值扭矩290Nm@2000rpm 后轻微下飘到4000rpm@285Nm左右的情况,这和长城在1750rpm扭矩数据轻微上漂到285Nm,整体扭矩平台在280-283Nm附近情况差不多。) 红色是奔驰1.5T的数据,这个扭矩曲线看起来很奇怪,主要我确实没有找到其他的M264的功率扭矩图。这张图对应其本次官方数据中峰值扭矩仅出现在3000-4000之间这个信息,这个信息是正确的。和奇瑞一样,尽管在1.5T上压榨出了280Nm扭矩,出现时间太晚,持续时间太短。 长城1.5T则是另一个极端,低速时候扭矩随着转速的提升很快,但是不到3000转就泄了。这个表现在车辆上就是起步感觉好,但是中高速竞速驾驶过程中会出现频繁换挡,没有稳定的扭矩平台就意味着更大的变速箱调整需求。这一点和长城的增压器选择以及整车调教方向有关系,看起来其实有点把汽油机调出柴油机的味道来了。 这里我没有列长安蓝鲸NE 1.5T 300Nm版的数据,因为我没有找到长安发布的扭矩图。只知道蓝鲸动力和长城1.5T类似,扭矩随转速提升的速度很快,官宣的扭矩平台为1250 - 3500rpm。不过考虑到蓝鲸的最大额定功率只有132kW,预计转速提升后的扭矩衰退曲线介于长城和奇瑞之间。 将功率和扭矩都低于通用新1.5T的本田1.5T高功率版加进来的原因是,通用新1.5T发动机的调教理念和本田1.5T高功率版颇有点异曲同工的意思。通用新1.5T在1500rpm达到95%扭矩,接近本田1.5T高功版峰值扭矩,而对比行业水平超级宽广的峰值扭矩平台对应的是车辆在中高速竞速中充沛且持续的动力,避免在关键提速中触发冲击换挡和动力中断! 更重要的是,通用1.5T的高功版是配合48V系统开发的,目前上汽通用还没有官方公布电机数据,但是参考类似BSG电机的水平,预计峰值扭矩可以达到50Nm左右,作为发动机的低速扭矩补偿,快速介入。 本田1.5T的260Turbo版上市后在北美的口碑很好,目前通用汽车和本田公司在发动机开发和汽车的动力调教方面其实有很好的技术交流合作模式。在2020年9月两家公司签署了不具约束力的战略合作协议,共同开发汽油动力和纯电动汽车。 通用汽车近年来在中大扭矩强力推进9AT/10AT,在中小扭矩采用CVT和部分6AT,将日系平顺性动力调教与美系的高性能调教相结合的意味非常明显。变速箱方面的上汽通用9AT的表现就是最好的证明。通用汽车最新一代的研发体系采用了更加全面的ARM1驾驶质量,就是要把发动机的动力输出与变速箱的调教相结合,结合整车驾驶质量联合开发,这就不是一个简单的刷一个点的峰值的问题,而是更加重视实际的驾驶品质。 接下来我们回过头来谈第1点,动力性是功率优先还是扭矩优先? 这个问题在几年前由38号重点“辟谣”0-100加速到底看功率还是扭矩开始,从微博到知乎发生过很长时间的辩论。这篇文章篇幅所限我无意讨论过程,直接抛出结论: 整车的动力性表现是发动机和变速箱结合输出的结果,一般来说,0-40kph的动力表现更看重扭矩,40-100kph的动力表现更看重功率,车速更高自然功率的影响更大。 紧接着是第2点:低速扭矩的表现受到什么影响? 为了能够实现更强劲的功率扭矩输出,那么就需要更大的增压进气量,而当发动机转速提升后,每缸的进气时间快速减少,要保持稳定的功率扭矩输出,就必须要更加强大的进气。所以各位一定要明白这个道理:实际真正决定发动机动力的不是喷油器,而是包括增压器在内的进气系统。如果只是从增压器端的设计考虑这个问题,要么你选择一个比较大的增压器,但是低转速段的响应会比较慢,要么你选择一个小一点的增压器,但是到转速提升后就会遭遇增压不足过早泄扭的问题。要获得峰值扭矩平台那就更难了,要么就是直接把峰值扭矩做低,但是大家可以看看如果按照通用1.5T的1750-5500rpm的标准来划扭矩平台,那么这些高扭矩发动机的峰值扭矩就不能看了。 那么上汽通用新1.5T的做法比较聪明,它实际上是采用的集成优化的形式来实现实际驾驶工况的低速扭矩响应的提升。 扭矩图中扭矩随着发动机转速的提升效果只是实际驾驶中低速扭矩响应的一部分,它只代表了发动机本身的性能表现。 水冷中冷进气系统一般是出现在重视低扭的德系上,它通过降低进气温度实现空气密度更大,在相同的增压器风扇的作用下可以更快,更多的压入新鲜空气。水冷不仅可以提升最大功率,而且它使得进气系统的所需容积大大降低,增压器的响应改进超过17%。 基于35Mpa的高效燃烧系统是神器。这个我们在第2点在讲。简单的来说,这套系统和基于先进喷射算法的控制逻辑可以让燃烧控制避开很多排放与安全性的限制,实现更加迅速的燃烧控制响应。 Dual Fast相位调节器是通用汽车和供应商战略合作联合开发的产品,全球首发,实现了进排气气门的开闭相位切换速度提升了1倍。发动机能够更快的进入目标状态。 响应性优化的低排气压力高响应排气系统,而且这套排气系统是包含了高集成GPF,当法规和整车性能要求需要GPF时,这种布置方式使得即便是在低负荷工况下,GPF能够尽快进入合适的温度正常工作,结合35Mpa系统和智能燃烧控制带来的良好原排,最大限度的减少客户处的风险。 JackyQ 点击下载 28 个回答,查看全部。 汽车底盘的所谓“硬”与“软”到底有什么区别? 汽车的发动机、底盘的调校是通过什么方式来实现的?

  • 增程式电动车一定要用传统的汽油发动机驱动发电机来发电吗?

    知乎每日精选 · Thu, 07 Jul 2022 15:17:17 +0800

    增程式本身就是为了弥补电池的储能与充电能力不足,而通过使用高能量密度燃料和驱动方式的其他动力来源都可以作为增城器。 对比常用锂电池中能量密度最高的三元锂电池,汽油的能量密度是它的58倍。即便考虑汽油发动机的热效率损失,也是一个量级的差距。而且汽油是一种可以在常温常压下以液态存储的完美燃料。这是汽油发动机能够作为电动汽车增程器的基础。这背后的化学基础,请参考我之前的回答,避免对这个答案的主线带来干扰: 究竟是什么限制了电池的容量? 首先,我们从大的形式来说,来谈什么还可以作为增程器: 从能量转换效率的角度来说,效率最高的增程器是氢燃料电池 所有的氢燃料电池汽车,都是增程式。 氢燃料电池的发出功率对比车辆的电驱输出功率越小,带电池量越大,那么就越接近充电宝式的增城器。也就是说增程器发出的电更多的先冲到电池里面,然后电池再输出到电机中。中国过去很多氢燃料电池大巴就是这样的,很大的一辆车,就带一个30kw - 60kw的燃料电池就够了。这样的增程器控制比较简单,燃料电池基本上启动了就是稳定输出峰值功率就好了。优点是简单,缺点是电力多次进出电池,转换损耗大。 氢燃料电池的发出功率对比电驱的输出功率比值越大,带电池量越少,那么车辆就越接近直驱式增程。这种增程办法,燃料电池发出的电更多的直接到电驱,电池作为一个补充。这样的系统要求对燃料电池的控制非常灵活,电堆的输出响应也很快,难度比较大。这样的优点主要是转换效率更高。比较典型的代表丰田的Mirai。 2.燃气轮机也可以做到最高转换效率超越汽油发动机,但是局限性很大 燃气轮机在车辆上的应用最早可以追溯到1940年代,英国的罗孚公司在1949年基于他们在1945年制成的罗孚燃气轮机上,打造了世界上第一台真正意义上的燃气轮机汽车:罗孚 P4 Rover 75。 罗孚公司曾经把这种动力称为“未来动力”,但是这项技术并没有发展下去。第一代燃气轮机汽车的点火转速达到3万转,在当时的工艺条件下,批量民用车辆的转速达到这个水平是很危险的。首台车辆的工程师驾驶员都在提心吊胆如果燃气轮机失效,高速飞出的金属碎片就会像子弹一样直接打穿他的身体。 真正现代意义上的微型燃气轮机的研究是从1970s年开始兴起的,最早是为了分布式能源的需求。我在上大学的时候,有一个课题就是做微型燃气轮机的调研,那时候研究的方向是跟踪国外在小的军事单位甚至单兵领域应用的情况,谁能想到快20年后我在网站上回答这个问题。 微型燃气轮机的成熟型号最早被应用在军事领域,例如在1981年,美国的微型燃气轮机轮机公司就开始为爱国者导弹的战斗系统提供供电系统,当年就交付了超过2000台。通过80年代的逐渐完善后,微型燃气轮机在90年代越来越成熟而且在民用领域广泛商业化,并引起了汽车公司的高度关注,克莱斯勒、菲亚特、福特、通用、梅赛德斯-奔驰、沃尔沃都进行了基于微型燃气轮机的混动系统的开发。 上图是福特公司在2009年发布的一款微型燃气轮机PHEV混动车型,其实就是增程式。因为高达70000转的燃气轮机不可能直接机械连接到车轮上。 燃气轮机作为汽车增程器的技术没有能够继续成熟发展的原因其实还是很直白的。汽油机的发展已经非常成熟了,燃气轮机如果要实现高能量转换,那么必须要实现更高的燃烧温度和超高的转速,一般70000-90000之间(是9万转,你没输错0的数量)。噪音、震动、零部件的安全性(任何机械结构,当转速超过1.5万转,对于轴承的设计和制造要求都是指数性的上升)、密封的要求等都超过了一般民用品能接受的程度。 前几年有一些汽车初创公司将新一代的微信燃气轮机再次作为增程器的方案拿来炒作,很多网站也把微型燃气轮机增程器写成了汽车工业的未来。这其实并不是汽车公司的发展成果,而是微型燃气轮机自身的发展。 不过我个人认为微型燃气轮机无论是目前的效率(肯定不如大型燃气轮机),还是如此高速的机械结构在车用上带来的风险与运行困难,将燃气轮机放在工作条件复杂的移动端都不是一个好主意。 然后我们来谈谈燃料类型,其实这个比较简单。 同样是内燃机的压燃式柴油机当然可以作为增程器,而且有很多类似产品。柴油机的主要问题一方面是噪音和震动的问题,另一方面是燃料获取的问题,特别是在中国。中国当年错过了欧洲车用高效柴油机应用的浪潮,一个很大的原因是城市很难拿到高品质和稳定供应的柴油。柴油优先供给军事领域,然后民用的柴油品质比较差,用在农用机械和低速重载的货车上。事实上过去中国的柴油是如此至少,以至于中国的中小型运输车辆很大的比例以及很长的时间是使用汽油的。 除了常见的柴油和汽油,使用天然气、甲醇、氢气和氨气也是未来的发展趋势。 这些燃料的共同特点是燃料本身属于低碳替代燃料,而且都可以通过电解水后进行电子合成,或者通过生物合成的方式来制取,主要是为了未来的碳排放控制的角度。 如果没有碳排放控制的需求,汽油依然是人类历史上发现的民用交通工具最完美的燃料,没有之一,而且刨除地缘政治因素,绝对储量本身在200年尺度其实完全可以说是取之不尽用之不竭,基础设施广泛,燃烧适应性好。这也是为什么汽油发动机成为传统民用乘用车的动力王者的原因。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com JackyQ 点击下载 32 个回答,查看全部。 增程式新能源汽车,更适合用哪种发动机? 增程式发动机与传统发动机有什么区别?

  • 堵车时,发动机频繁启停会对发动机寿命造成严重的不良影响吗?

    知乎每日精选 · Thu, 07 Jul 2022 15:15:23 +0800

    本人从事了十几款车型升级为启停之后的设计变更和认证,以及后续机型将启停作为标配后的系统设计工作。 我介绍一下,当一台发动机被改为启停功能后,需要修改什么零件。 站在2022年的角度,启停功能是需要做区分的。分为纯燃油车的启停、带48V弱混的启停。 而比48V弱混更高的电气化程度,低速启动阶段是电机拖动,然后带动发动机启动,和文中的堵车导致的频繁启停工况不一样,我们就不涉及了。 传统的启停是通过调整启动电机的设计来实现的。 带启停功能的启动电机的物料价格是不带启停功能的2-4倍。当一台非启停功能的发动机需要升级为启停功能的时候,需要对启动电机、柔性盘或双质量飞轮的齿以及轴承进行升级,整车这里需要升级蓄电池就不多说了。不过也就仅此而已。 非启停工况的启动电机一般来说全生命周期的启动次数在6-8万次左右,而启停功能的启动电机的认证周期在35万次左右,部分自主企业会降低到25万次(后面讲为什么)。 特别是对于配自动变速箱的发动机来说,采用的是一种叫柔性盘的飞轮结构,这是因为自动变速箱所要求的轴向窜动,需要将连接发动机和变速箱之间的飞轮结构变成既有强度又有挠度的结构,这种结构在国外叫Flexplate,在国内被翻译为柔性盘。 启停会带来冲击载荷,从而会对柔性盘的寿命带来影响,柔性盘(AT)或双质量飞轮(CVT)的齿与启动电机匹配,需要进行齿强度的确认或加强。 本土的主机厂一般会采用在柔性盘供应商处开展零部件级的疲劳试验来模拟启停冲击,采用电机模拟点火冲击。合资品牌一般是直接用点火发动机台架直接来开展启停试验。比如说在我这里的验收标准是35万次整机真实点火启动耐久冲击后,齿面磨损可接受,基本上再跑个35万次还能保持功能完整的那种。 对轴承的加强也是如此,不过和普通人理解不同的是,启停需要加强的是发动机前端第一档的主轴承。如果不做这样的加强,就会存在轴瓦磨损的风险。 我们会选择采用polymer基础的涂层来给轴瓦进行加强,这种耐磨涂层可以显著提升轴瓦的耐磨和抗咬合能力。当你拆开发动机后,如果发现主轴瓦(安装在缸体上的大轴瓦)的颜色不是铝合金的亮白色(由于轴瓦表面需要做微储油槽而有一点哑光效果),那么除了部分情况下是日系发动机采用的是低摩擦金属基涂层外,绝大多数情况下是我说的polymer耐磨涂层。 有些时候你会看到这类轴瓦的颜色不同,其实不用在意,颜色不同是由于各家供应商用的着色剂不同。比如FM公司采用的红色,而Mahle公司采用青蓝色居多,其他轴瓦厂也会采用其他颜色。这个倒没有什么法规规定,就是行业内约定俗成的一些颜色。也蛮有趣的。 启停用启动电机的结构也也会更复杂和精巧,一方面来说启动电机的功率会更大,性能更强,另一方面对于啮合要求会更高。 传统启停并没有改变靠瞬时大电流的启动电机来将发动机的转速带到200rpm以上并让点火起燃顺利发生的模式。所以启动周期依然比较长,然后会给驾驶员一个冲击的感觉。这是传统启停令客户不满的一个基础背景。 注意看上图的右侧收缩在暗处的齿轮,这就是启动齿轮。当车辆要启动时,首先这个齿轮会伸出来,平移到目前光亮轴的位置,并与前面说的发动机的柔性盘或者双质量飞轮的齿啮合,然后车辆提供一个大电流让这么小的一个电机带动发动机转起来,并顺利点火运行。 让如此小体积的电机带动相比很大的发动机转动需要巨大的扭矩,也就是巨大的电流。事实上,电流是如此之大,以至于几乎所有的车子都要求你的单次启动时间不能超过15秒,而且当你打不着火的时候不能多次频繁启动,需要休息一下。因为过多使用会导致电机线圈热量过高,导致启动电机“烧了“,其实就是过热失效。 在传统启停时代,基于有限的硬件条件,工程师还是想了很多办法来优化这个设计的客户体验。其中,策略最为复杂的是通用汽车的启停策略。 通用汽车优化启停策略的原因完全是被逼的,因为美国法律规定如果车企要在法规申报的过程中申报具有启停功能而享受了油耗的收益,那么车辆的启停功能应该被设定为不可被关闭。这就是为什么,上汽通用的车子,特别是很多全球车型,国内客户一直以来的抱怨是找不到启停开关,有些的藏得很深,有些干脆连修改的界面都没有。 举个例子:通用汽车的启停有一个独门绝技,叫做COM (Change of Mind),它关注的客户痛点是这样的: 当你开车遇到拥堵或者红灯,你刹车,发动机要进入启停功能的停机状态,但是在停机的中间,突然绿灯了,或者前车动了。一般的启停系统需要等本次停车结束后,发起下次启动。但是通用汽车的COM模式启停可以实现当刹车松开的一瞬间,启动电机可以快速准确的插入并啮合到还在旋转的飞轮之中,并再次快速启动发动机。这就可以大大的改善客户再次启动的动力恢复时间。 除了这个功能之外,通用汽车的启停策略设计了数十种不同的模式,然后有一个巨大的策略库来进行各种极端情况的处理,从而尽可能地减少对客户的冲击。 当然,策略的优化只能改进,却无法完全改变传统启停天生的冲击大的基础。所以,有一年我在和上汽通用品牌的人在试驾后,我说这个启停的功能很棒啊,COM我觉得不错,品牌方的人苦笑道:在中国的大环境下,启停的最好去处难道不是被关掉吗? 这种心态带来的恶性循环,就是很多本土品牌不再优化启停策略,任由启停实际感受很糟糕,反正法规油耗拿到了,客户会关闭的。然后带来的进一步恶果,就是国内部分品牌主机厂的启停认证不仅是零部件模拟,而且将次数下降到了20万次甚至更低。 至于说大家担心的活塞、活塞环啥的。影响不大。这点冲击没什么影响。我在2012年后改的发动机从1.3L到2.5L,从没有因为改S/S而修改过这些零件,24万公里耐久后检查零件磨损并没有差别。 P0 48V弱混的启停是通过P0皮带轮电机带动的,智能启停效果远好于传统启停。 以我去年参加的上汽通用的昂科威S发布上官方提供的1.5T+48V系统为例,前端的48V电机不仅可以带动发动机启动,还可以提供高达50Nm的较长时间的扭矩响应补偿功能。由于是电机辅助启动,不仅摆脱了机械齿轮传动带来的冲击感,而且耐久性更高,可以实现50万次以上的启停耐久。此外,尽管电机无法支持独立驱动车辆,但是依然可以实现对发动机的加速响应补偿、减速部分能量回收以及灵活的智能启停功能。而且发动机也因此可以将怠速转速适当提升,令平顺性进一步加强。 采用这种模式的启停,对于发动机的影响就很小了,只需要对轴承进行加强即可。 总结一下: 传统启停会对零件寿命带来挑战,但是主机厂的工程师已经提升了对应零件的设计标准,从而让耐久寿命回归到了正常水平。事实上因为这其中使用了很多严重过设计的技术(例如涂层),你甚至可以认为启停发动机的寿命比非启停的还要高; 主机厂想了很多办法来优化传统启停的客户感受,但是由于传统启停的基础机械机理,客户还是会感受到部分的不适感,关键看客户是否能接受。作为一个经常关注瞬时油耗,而且还经常清零油耗里程来自娱自乐本次下班的平均油耗的车主来说,启停功能真香。 P0-48V启停大幅改善了启停感受,也减少了对发动机的硬件影响,未来车主对于启停的评价可能会有新的变化。 JackyQ 点击下载 45 个回答,查看全部。 堵车时,发动机频繁启停会对发动机寿命造成什么影响? 车辆空调开启时发动机转速不变化是怎么回事?

  • 长沙有哪些深藏不露的餐馆?

    知乎每日精选 · Thu, 07 Jul 2022 10:14:43 +0800

    铁子们,你们看到茶颜悦色的江浙沪首站选在南京的新闻了吗? 我在这条新闻下面看到有网友评论说,不用专门跑长沙啦。而有人是这么说的:“我再也不用去长沙了!” 这就让我这个精神长沙人不服气了,什么时候茶颜能代表整个长沙了? 就不说鲜辣可口的湘菜和琳琅满目的街头小吃,就光光是为了嗦粉,长沙也值得专程跑好几趟。 长沙在我心里真的很“狂野”,会玩会吃似乎刻在了每一个长沙人的骨子里。而且,越到晚上,人越精神,城市也越发热闹。 我记得第一次去长沙的时候,晚上11点多跑出酒店吃宵夜,本想着街上可能没什么人了,没想到到处都热闹得像是杭州七八点的样子,我大为震惊。 所以,每年一到夏天,我就更馋这座夜猫子城市了,尤其馋那几个在全国都排得上名的夜市,四方坪、南门口、东瓜山......彻底丰满了我枯燥贫瘠的夜生活。 长沙的夜市吧,主要都是以小吃摊为主,各有特点。 比如四方坪就是集合了全国各地的小吃,南门口长沙本地味道居多,东瓜山似乎更专精于小吃及烧烤。不管你喜欢哪种类型的夜市,我觉得长沙都能满足。 踏进长沙人声鼎沸的夜市里,烦恼什么的瞬间不存在了,真的只想专心沉浸在夜色里,体会人间值得!要说有什么不满意的,可能就是嫌自己胃太小了吧。_(:△」∠)_ 四方坪夜市 开福区栖凤路37号 地铁三号线四方坪站或雅雀湖站 四方坪,长沙的夜市顶流,人挤人挤人是日常。 夜市就是笔直一条街,有300多米长,略数数就有40多个小摊位吧,这还是没算上两边及附近门店的数字。 刚也说了四方坪集合了全国各地的特色小吃,但“选品”才不是一般夜市上有的像铁板鱿鱼之流的大众款,而是有许多小众、有创意的美食,什么蛋包洋芋、飞饼、炒意面,都是街上的人气担当。 能在一众实力强劲的对手面前脱颖而出,确实是有几把刷子的。 李记印度飞饼 四方坪最最最火的小铺,火到要像餐厅一样发号子,排队至少一小时起步。 飞饼表皮是绝对酥脆的口感,咬下去还能听见咔嚓声。里面的皮子却还可以保持着绵密,馅料也是软软糯糯,小小一块饼也做出了很多层次,油润但不油腻。 香蕉飞饼和榴莲飞饼是李记的两大王牌,水果经过高温一激,甜味更浓郁了。记得拿到了飞饼一定要赶紧炫,不然打包的水汽会让外皮失去酥脆感,灵魂就没啦。 李记是四方坪的排队大户,建议大家到了就先过来排队,再慢慢逛别的小摊,等逛得差不多了,飞饼也就排到了。 上海香酥童子鸡 这家是四方坪的老店了,每天上午就开门营业,童子鸡一天限量200只,每天大概下午七点就售罄,不算是夜市专属,更像当地居民朋友的卤菜店。 店门口摆着一锅沸腾的卤水,香味飘散得很远。老板透露说卤水里放了几十种秘制中草料,所以味道很难被复刻。 童子鸡有两种做法可选,一种是原味纯卤制,另一种是先卤后炸的。付完款老板就会立即把鸡肉切成小块,再撒上一层辣椒面,差不多能把普通打包盒装得满满当当,性价比蛮高的。 炸过的鸡皮金黄诱人,口感脆脆的,和里面滑嫩的鸡肉有着鲜明对比。咬开以后,鸡肉还带点汁水,吃起来也不柴。 梅花小蛋糕 相信大家都对梅花小蛋糕有童年滤镜吧!四方坪就有几家卖这种小蛋糕的店,每家都很有人气。 烤蛋糕的铁板依然是记忆中的样子,老板在上面刷上一层玉米油,倒上蛋奶液,烘个一两分钟热腾腾的小蛋糕就出炉啦,一口一个刚刚好。 大家一般都会选原味全熟的,底部烤得带一点焦皮,内里咬下去还是非常蓬松软嫩的,奶香味十足。 老板还创新了爆浆款,点单的人也特别多。其实爆浆就是半熟状态,缩短了烤制时间,内部蛋奶液还没完全凝固,形成流心口感,湿润可口。 德盛宁波水塔糕 女孩子们向来对任何糯叽叽的东西没什么抵抗力,所以这间水塔糕专门店也被挖出来了! 店铺是藏在夜市边上的菜市场里,水塔糕每天早晨新鲜现做,上午开门,卖完就收摊,晚上逛夜市来买的话一般都能买到,只是可能就和热门口味无缘了。 最热门的口味是桂花味,纯白油润的糕体,光是看着就能感受到松软,入口绵密又很有嚼头,微酸的发酵味和米的甜味缓缓化开,加上干桂花的香气,平衡得很不错。 其他还有红糖、南瓜、葡萄干、芝麻、黑米等口味,都是六元一份,其实每种都想试试,但分量真的很大,建议老板搞个全家福,满足大家贪心的嘴~ 清真宫廷香酥牛肉饼 四方坪又一个人气王,招牌很显眼,晚上来的话一般队伍都很长。 老板手脚特别麻利,将面团摊开,刷油、铺肉、添上满满的洋葱,一气呵成。 牛肉饼是现包现烤,一锅有40个左右,每次轮大概十个人就卖完了,可见人气有多旺,正常来说都要等上个一两轮。 牛肉饼巨大一个,分量扎实,从外表就能看出香酥感。牛肉的汁水牢牢包裹在饼皮深层,里层被汁水浸润,牛肉与洋葱打着完美配合,留下满口鲜美。 碳水让人快乐,这话真的不假~ 四方坪其他推荐:美式炸排条、张记意大利面、仙湘锅盔 南门口夜市 天心区西湖路附近 地铁一号线南门口站 白天就很好逛的南门口,夜晚一样精彩。 南门口是以长郡中学为中心形成的小吃街,距离市中心地铁仅两个站,所以人气一直很旺。街上大多都是陪伴学生们十多年的老店,基本无踩雷。 金记糖油坨坨 糖油坨坨是长沙人的童年记忆,金记就是陪伴了一代人成长的白月光。 店铺开业30多年了,从起初的小摊到现在有了店面,一直都维持着高人气,无论什么时候来,总能见到长长的队伍。 圆滚滚的糯米团子下锅裹糖油,等外表形成一层脆壳,足够金黄诱人。(制法与成都的糖油果子相似~) 店里一般是两口锅子一起工作,效率挺高的,所以即使队伍长,等待时间也不会太久。 比起糖油粑粑,我更爱糖油坨坨的圆润糯实感。 趁热吃,外表焦脆甜润,带着浓重的油香味,每个部分味道都分布得均匀。里层是压得紧实的糯米,绵密细软,越嚼越有滋味。 杨嗲甜酒 南门口的传奇老店很多,杨嗲甜酒算一个。 店铺自从87年开业以来,就一直低调地躲在老巷子里,做着街坊邻居和学生的生意。这几年名气渐渐大了,上了综艺,还被天心区政府正式授牌为非物质文化遗产。杨家的甜酒手艺,民间、官方都认可。 店铺藏在窄到只够一个人通行的巷子深处,环境倒是打理得很清爽干净。目前是杨嗲的儿子主要负责店铺的运营,杨嗲对原材料、出品进行把关。 招牌甜酒,盛放在小碗里,和小时候记忆里的酒酿一个样子。淡淡的酒香先钻进鼻子,入口是淡淡的甜,糯米轻轻一抿就化开,感觉每一粒都裹满了酒香。 自创的酒酿梅子冻,也是高回购款,甜酒与酸梅冻的组合,冰凉清爽,太适合夏天。如果你爱酒,那么杨嗲自家出品的桂花酿、杨梅酿、柚子酿都值得一试哦! 金花泡菜 起源于湖南怀化的金花泡菜,有20多年的历史,自从在南门口开了店,就一直是长沙泡菜扛把子级的存在。 店铺不大,几十种泡菜分别码在罐子、冰柜中,想吃什么自己拿盆子夹,最后老板会浇上秘制调料混合现拌。 推荐酸甜萝卜、酸甜萝卜皮、血粑、米豆腐、凉皮凉粉。因为是一份份现拌,所以在这个环节总是需要耐心等上一段时间。秘制辣椒油是金花的精髓,才浇进锅里翻拌,香味就升腾起来了。 泡菜刚入口是纯纯的香味,腌制的甜、酸满满涌上来,咀嚼得差不多了,辣味嘭得炸开来,很复杂很多元。空口吃基本是可以的,不会太咸太重口,但如果搭配碗米饭,那就更完美了。 旺旺小吃店 南门口的又一家神级小店,只卖凉菜,想吃得靠运气。因为老板实在太任性,天气不好、心情不好、不想做菜都能成为不开门的理由,许多人都吃过闭门羹。 店面就是一个街角小摊头,门前支了几张桌椅板凳供堂食。刚也说了老板很任性,所以即使开店了态度也不太好,这也是旺旺小吃最具争议的点。 麻辣香干丝是旺旺的招牌,几乎每个来的顾客都会点一份。事先油炸过的香干丝拌上辣酱,每一根都油滋滋的。口感极具韧劲,辣味特别强劲,是很典型的湘味凉菜,下酒绝配。 其他像是土豆丝、蒜苗、莴笋、藕片等常规款也值得一试,凉菜统一每份10元,可以两样混搭买。 大家一般是选一份凉菜,再加一份五元的凉面,这就组成一套拯救夏天的套餐,凉爽又满足,在燥热的天气下也能胃口大开。 南门口其他推荐:南门口湘军剁辣椒老店、爱上酸嘢、五娭毑臭豆腐 东瓜山夜市 天心区东瓜山一条巷 地铁一号线、三号线侯家塘站 东瓜山是长沙有名的夜市街,早些年可以说是撑起了长沙夜晚的半壁江山。 这条有点坡度的小巷子,两侧排布着年代感的老房子,随处可见烧烤店、炸串小摊、糖水铺......霓虹灯闪耀,烟火升腾,整条街道充满市井气。 揣着100块进去,就能吃到心满意足。 盟重烧烤 东瓜山最有名除了东瓜山肉肠,那就是盟重了,被誉为长沙烧烤代表之一,上过《天天向上》,是不少明星的深夜食堂。 名气大了自然就有争议,盟重也不例外。但到了东瓜山,不吃一顿盟重就不够完整。店铺坐落在一座老房子里,装修成了类似于湘西土城的样子,门口常常挤满排队的人。 盟重主打湘西小串,必点烈火牛肉。事先看了介绍说他们家的牛肉是用“擂串”烤法制作,将牛肉放上烧热的铁板上擂到变色,再迅速撒上调料即上桌。 抬到面前时,牛肉还在滋滋作响,香味很诱人。因为是擂制出来的,所以牛肉很弹嫩,汁水被紧紧锁在了肉质之间。 Top2的烤牛油也必须点,虽说是牛油,但烤完后它真的一点也不油腻!个个都是金黄焦脆的,碳香之外还有一股馥郁的奶香。 丹丹热卤 在东瓜山开了10多年的丹丹热卤,从以前的推车更新换代到有了门面,承载了不少长沙人的味蕾记忆。 作为一家老店,丹丹热卤同样很有争议,有人说这是长沙老底子的味道,但有人又说本地人从来不爱光顾。 看着大家吵来吵去,我倒是从中发现了一个结论——丹丹家的猪油拌粉,是两方都觉得特别好吃的存在! 和某盛、某胡等网红热卤店不同,丹丹的猪油拌粉就是最传统的做法。上桌时白花花一碗,猪油、酱油都藏在碗底,趁热拌开,每一片粉皮都裹上香润的猪油,不用多余的配料就足够出彩了。 如意小吃 这是老长沙人在东瓜山的私藏据点,躲在一个不起眼的角落里。大多数人的注意力早早被边上的东瓜山肉肠摊位所吸引,根本想不到这么一家小苍蝇馆子竟然藏着地道的古早长沙味。 如意的菜品种类非常丰富,从火锅干锅、特色口味菜到炒菜、凉拌菜都有涉猎,猪油拌粉、紫苏桃子、口味虾都是推荐必点菜。 一道创意铁板牛肉,好评率超高!提前码过料的新鲜牛肉直接上桌,放进铁板里将两面微煎变色,香味瞬间扑鼻,肉质软嫩,锅气十足,吃得出一股奶香。 尹记小吃 比起网红店,夫妻档小店尹记实在是低调不显眼,只有三四张桌子,布置得很温馨,人也相对来说少些,所以附近的居民也爱跑来他们家吃宵夜。 这几年,炸炸炸在长沙遍地开花,通俗来讲就是汇集各种炸物的店。尹记的炸炸炸也算是招牌,包菜、土豆、椰奶、酥鸡骨头......一切皆可炸。 还有一道老板引以为豪的独创菜秘制云豆,上桌是冰凉的状态,大芸豆裹上话梅汁,粉糯酸甜,就连不爱吃豆子的人都把持不住全部光盘。 东瓜山其他推荐:蒋哥长沙里手呷货铺、宝贝蒸饺、三食堂/裕南街炸炸炸 /// 长沙的人间烟火,可能一大半都藏在夜市里了~今天和你们聊的长沙这三大夜市,都是兼具实力与人气的存在。 当然,长沙的夜市也不止这三处,像是德思勤夜市、扬帆夜市、渔人码头、凌晨的国金解放西,也都有着超高的人气,每一个夜市都能让你饱腹而归。 长沙的友友们有什么私藏夜市或是夜宵小店,欢迎大方分享呀~ 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 嬉游君 点击下载 312 个回答,查看全部。 太原有什么地道美味的湘菜小馆值得推荐? 上海有哪些深藏不露的特色美食和餐馆不能错过?

  • 如何看待北大教授姚洋表示「未来 30 年内中国世界工厂地位都不可能被印度越南取代」?

    知乎每日精选 · Wed, 06 Jul 2022 16:23:51 +0800

    @司马懿 老师写了越南,我也写下印度,顺便补充一下越南和孟加拉国的情况。首先先从中国目前主要的经济问题入手,然后谈谈为什么印度、越南和孟加拉国不可能取代中国制造,最后谈谈这些新兴国家的发展前景。 姚洋为什么说中国世界工厂地位很难被替代? 姚洋发的视频里面,大概是三个依据,分别是产业替代不会这么快、我们有产业升级、目前的产业地位是我们努力得来的。第一个司马懿老师也说了,这个很显然是事实,而第三个没必要讨论,而最关键的是产业升级到底有没有呢? 中国的产业升级并未弥补经济成长和全要素生产率增速下降 从供给侧看,产业升级确实是有。通讯信息类(ICT)资本投入和知识创新确实是有大幅度提升,大概比十年前翻了一倍,大概从过去拉动1%的GDP增加到了2%,说明现在发展质量比起十几年前的粗放式发展好多了。 但是这没法扭转整体技术进步的下滑,剔除了技术创新的TFP增速大幅下降到1%,即使是加上知识创新,也就是稳定在2%左右。也就是说产业升级中的知识创新部分,并不够成功,中国并未转向蔡昉所说的“全要素生产率驱动的经济体”。而通讯信息类资本存量增速是通过资本投入带动技术进步,本质上来源于投资,这部分增长也不足以弥补传统基建、房地产投资下滑的损失。 总结一下:产业升级严重依赖于通讯信息类产业,以增加资本投入为主,而知识创新的比重确实也有大幅提升。与之同步发生的是,剔除这些因素的全要素生产率大幅下滑,产业升级并不能扭转技术进步放缓的趋势。而中国经济的主要推动力依旧是投资,单纯看固定资产投入拉动的经济增长,投资所贡献的GDP从过去的40%进一步提升到60%。 高善文:房地产市场面临转折,中国经济结构转型将显著提高未来10年A股回报能力 而高善文的一篇文章,也指出了: 但是在当下的绝对水平上,低增长组仍然比高增长组高出差不多10个百分点。如果我们以此作为评判的标准,可以说过去十年,特别是过去五年中国工业结构经历了快速的转型,但现在仍然是由传统产业来主导的。 十年之前存在着一种广泛的观点,认为未来中国经济结构的转型,将是向着高端制造业,比如汽车、工程机械、数控机床、精密仪器等方向,因为历史上其他经济体的转型是朝着向上述方向,但以截至目前的中国数据来看,这种情况似乎没有出现。 在中国的转型历程之中,以行业出口交货值占比的变化来看,中国的产业升级大约有70%发生在计算机、通信和电子设备制造领域(以下简称电子制造)。 所以中国面临的情况是:中国结构的转型并没有向上述高端制造业大幅前进,并且以传统产业为主导,但是在电子制造领域出现明显产业升级,沿产业链往上爬升,这对应了前文所述通讯信息类产业的发展。 在这种情况下,依旧占据主导地位的传统产业肯定是害怕后来者的阻击。 当下中国经济的主要挑战是金融风险,而不是产业外流 当然姚洋也说了,这种产业转移会是非常缓慢的,缓慢的产业转移和过快增长下滑相关性不大,现在影响中国经济增长潜力的主要部分是全要素生产率的过快下滑。至少在相当长的时间,产业外流不是一个紧迫的问题。 而这二十年中国经济改革力度有限,加上改革边际效应递减,像是最近十年的大规模国进民退,都产生了副作用,这都决定了全要素生产率增速拉不起来了。现在还讨论这些已经没太多意义了,更重要的是避免再次快速下滑。 在过去几年中,投资绝对贡献的GDP仅仅下降了1%,这背后是巨大的信贷杠杆带动的增长。在日韩等国的发展经验表明,后发国家在追赶过程往往打造集中式金融,以格申克龙事实的信贷模式推动增长,金融业随着信贷扩张而日益庞大,必然会去中心化的吸收资源和扩散风险,最终酿造严重的金融危机。 因而在辜朝明的《资产负债表衰退》理论中,强调日本企业竞争力并未在90年代大幅下滑,但是却以负债最小化而不是扩张为经营目标,最终漫长的去杠杆拖累产业和企业竞争力。 中国过去几年的稳增长,同样积累了巨大的金融风险,如果爆发了,那么在漫长的去杠杆中,现在已有的产业升级或者产业竞争力都会大幅衰退。 从紧迫性来说,产业外流也不是很着急的考量,紧迫的是避免系统性金融危机,防止资产负债表衰退导致的增速再次下滑。 印度、越南和孟加拉国是当下增长前景最好的新兴国家,但是制造业都较为有限 那印度和越南是什么情况呢? @司马懿 老师做了越南的介绍,做一点补充。印度、越南和孟加拉国是目前经济成长最好的新兴国家,大概都是7%的增速。而根据世界银行的统计,历史上只有13个经济体维持了25年以上的7%高增长,加上这三个国家,也就是区区十六个而已。 这三个国家的经济发展也是有很大的区别,有一点是一样的,那就是制造业比重很低,大概都不到20%,过去二十年平均值都只有15%。 可想而知即使是发展到很高的水平,也不会达到中国的高度。中国在2000年后的“世界工厂”地位,主要是作为消费品的世界主要供给国。像中国到现在,也能供给世界大概60-70%的冰箱,在绝大多数消费产品中,中国都是有世界一半以上的产能。因此这个地位是不会被取代,也没有国家能取代了。 当然这种庞大产能的外流也是不可避免的,随着中国制造业的劳动生产率不断提升,劳工成本必然也会大幅提升。 中国的制造业如果中国想要发展到发达国家水平,那么一个制造业工人要创造5-6万美元的高产出,这是很难靠出口消费品来做到的,那自然会外流到其他国家。 印度、越南和孟加拉国的制造业结构 总量看完了,从结构上来看,印度、越南和孟加拉国的制造业结构是有巨大的区别。印度是以资金密集型和技术密集型产业为主,越南是以劳动生产率较低的劳动密集型产业为主,孟加拉国的制造业高度集中于纺织业。 印度产业以资金密集型和技术密集型产业为主,劳动密集型产业弱,产业创造就业能力差 由于印度国内存在严重的制度阻碍,尤其是劳务市场监管的落伍和复杂,使得劳动成本过高,产业和企业竞争力差。印度虽然劳动力过剩,但是劳动密集型产业并不发达。但是印度本国的市场非常庞大,经济增长是消费驱动型,内向型产业较为发达。 尤其是靠庞大资本市场以及消费市场保护堆积出来的巨型企业,可以克服劳动成本过高的障碍,有明显的规模优势,因此在资金密集型产业和技术密集型产业非常有优势。 而主要劳动法律在1970年后停止出台,70年代后崛起的服务业企业,免于被严苛的劳务法管制,这导致印度服务业出口具备劳动密集型特征。林毅夫称:“而印度的增长则依赖于在呼叫中心、编程及业务流程服务中的专业分工,这些领域是信息产业内的劳动力密集型活动。”。当然这些信息出口也受益于印度国内庞大的过剩大学生供给,也有技术密集型特征,这为印度近些年来的软件业“产业升级”为互联网产业奠定了基础。 根据Arvind Subramanian的划分,印度出口中最大的一部分是高技术服务业,同时有1/4来自于高技术制成品出口,以农产品和矿产品为主的初级产品比例大幅削减。 即使印度制造业比重一直是15%,并且出口有巨额逆差,但是出口集中于创造较高价值的部门,进一步通过溢出效应,带动其他服务业增长,逐步实现持续经济增长和产业升级。 Arvind Subramanian的划分,一般不太常用,像世界银行一般是分成高技术、中等技术和低技术数制成品。前段时间有一个相关项目,根据我个人计算的最新数据,初级产品、传统的低技能和中高技能制成品占商品出口比重约为13%、26%和60%。 而印度商品出口和服务出口比例大概是60%和40%,也就是说根据我计算的初等产品和低技能制成品占总出口约为1/4,比Arvind Subramanian计算结果低了10%,中高技能制成品比重是35%,高了10%。再加上近40%的服务出口,印度70%的出口集中于附加值较高的产业,这在同水平的发展中国家中非常少见。 年份\项目(比重)初级产品 占商品出口比重低技能制成品占商品出口比重中高技能 制成品占商品出口比重商品出口比重服务业出口比重 2013/14财年13.7%39.2%46.1%65.2%34.8% 2021/22财年12.7%25.9%59.5%62.5%37.5% 越南的制造业集中于较低效率的劳动密集型产业,竞争力高,但是劳动生产率低 根据越南统计局数据,越南的制造业比重是16.5%,但是制造业从业者比重是20.6%,也就是说越南的制造业劳动生产率仅为平均水平80%,存在大量低效制造业就业。 这几年越南制造业确实出现了大发展,越南制造业从业者比重从2015年从15.9%提升到20.6%,创造了300万制造业岗位。这大概带动越南制造业比重从13.7%提升到16.5%。但是创造的岗位增加值非常低,只有平均劳动生产率的60%, 而越南本身制造业就业者都超过20%了,这个比中国都高多了,可想而知最多也就是还有三四百万人(30%左右劳动力)的制造业岗位潜力,越南吸收中国产业外流的潜力被大大高估了。 而越南制造业只有四五百亿美元,但是他的出口却高达3000亿美元,绝大多数是不可能自产的,而是以再加工为主,甚至有大量贴牌业务。 从结构来看,越南出口的40%是电子制造相关的产品,而进口的33%是电子制造相关产品,是典型的大进大出,而他本国的生产和消费都非常有限,这就意味着越南电子制造产业很依赖于大进大出的加工贸易,并没有创造太多增加值,单单看进出口数据容易高估。 而越南出口的20%左右是纺织业相关的产品,进口是只有5%左右是相关原材料,这代表越南的纺织业确实是主要靠本地生产,并且是靠耐克的跨国公司提供销路,但是这部分增加值比较低。 因此越南制造业主要是电子制造和纺织业,创造增加值都较低,因而制造业劳动生产率偏低。当然越南也有一些内向型产业发展不错,随着房地产大发展,越南钢铁产业在过去十年翻了整整五倍,人均钢铁消费比中国同期都高了一倍,但是不足以扭转整体制造业的低效率困境。 对比一下印度,印度制造业的资金密集型特征非常明显,制造业劳动生产率较高。 印度的制造业劳动力仅仅6000万,占比为12%,要比越南低了8%。而印度国内的GDP统计是不区分产业的,扣除净税补贴的GVA是区分产业的。根据印度统计局数据,2021/22财年的现价和不变价GVA中,制造业比重分别为15.5%和18.2%(印度的价格基准还是2011/12年,两者差距过大)。 因此印度制造业单位劳动力创造的产值大概是平均水平的125-150%之间,对比之下,越南则仅仅是80%。 所以印度制造业问题在于无法充分利用劳动力,无法创造就业,表现为拥有禀赋的劳动密集型产业不发达,大量消费品需要进口。而越南则是制造业劳动生产率过低,资金密集型和技术密集型产业欠发达,抑制长期发展潜力。 孟加拉国产业竞争力仅集中在劳动密集型产业的纺织业 最后谈下孟加拉国,从出口结构来看,孟加拉国90%的出口集中于纺织类产业,剩下的出口产品也是以初级产品为主,中高技能制成品基本没有,高技能的服务业出口也不能像印度一样创汇。所以,孟加拉国的国际收支情况比印度更糟糕点。 孟加拉国比起印度的优势在于民族国家,执政党具有一言九鼎的权力。像是征地改革和劳动改革,都是印度想做但是很难做的,孟加拉国在十几年前就做了,劳动密集型产业发展要好得多。 再加上孟加拉国和越南积极签订FTA,基本上把印度的劳动密集型产品市场给占了大半,因此这两年印度也急了,开始积极和发达国家签订FTA。 总结一下,从制造业结构来说,这三个高增长的新兴国家优缺点都很明显: 印度非常擅长资金密集型和技术密集型产业,出口以中高技术制成品和高技术服务业为主,技术含量在同水平发展中国家非常高。因此,制造业劳动生产率非常高,但是创造就业非常少,无法利用过剩劳动力。 越南非常擅长劳动密集型产业,以大进大出、转口贴牌的电子制造为主,同时专精低附加值的纺织业,近些年来钢铁等内向型产业大发展。因此制造业岗位多、劳动生产率偏低,近些年制造业大发展强化了这种趋势。 孟加拉国出口集中于纺织类产品,有技术含金量的产品基本没有,信息出口有限,国际收支问题非常严重。但是靠着改革优势和FTA优势,大幅抢占印度劳动密集型产业市场。 从这种角度来说,去印度做投资很困难,他做得好的企业都是有壁垒的,很依赖于政治,做的不好的制造业都是竞争性的。所以印度政府要解决问题,就要解决市场开放和企业竞争力不足的问题。 越南就基本相反,竞争性产业做得很好,不过面临高端产业的升级问题,很容易被外资限定在低价值链的水平上。所以越南政府要解决问题,要尽量吸引更高水平的外资企业,同时鼓励国内公有和私有企业都提升效率。 谈下印度、越南和孟加拉国的发展问题,城市化、劳动力、资本等各个要素的情况 虽然疫情前这几个国家的潜在增长率还有7%,但是疫情都会导致增长损失,可能已经降低到6%多点的水平,需要通过结构性改革才能提振潜力。 首先谈城市化问题 目前印度、越南和孟加拉国城市化率都不到40%,处于中国90年代水平,而中国城市化大概完成于2030年,也就是说这三个新兴国家城市化进程依旧会持续约40年: 根据东南亚多国经验,如果出现金融危机导致的经济结构性变动,会导致经济增长大幅下降到最低4%,也就是说这三个国家在城市化完成前,大概有最低每年4%的增长潜力 不能错误的拿停滞的拉美作为比较,拉美进口替代推动的高增长开始于1950年代,而巴西1950年城市化率为36%,墨西哥为43%,之后拉美国家还依靠城市化带动增长了二三十年。 印度、越南和孟加拉国的经济增长还处于赶超阶段的前半段,即使遇到严重经济危机,这个发展过程也会持续到城市化完成。 越南和孟加拉国进入城市化高速发展时期,每年城市化率提升约0.8%,这种城市化会带动至少十几年的中高速增长: 根据发展经济学理论,一旦城市化率超过30%,城市化增速会慢慢提升到1%,目前越南和孟加拉国正处于这个状况。 非农就业的劳动生产率是农业就业的4倍,所以理想情况下1%的城市化增速会带动3%的劳动生产率提升,这种经济增长来源于劳动力在部门之间迁徙产生的“结构变化”(structural change)。 根据东亚经验,城市化率发展到50%前后,农村无限劳动供给开始消失,出现路易斯拐点,增长模式会出现转换,经济发展可能会放缓。 所以城市化带动的经济增长还会持续相当长的时间,目前离路易斯拐点还有十几年时间,当然不一定能维持7%的高增长。 印度的城市化和越南、孟加拉国不同,城市化并未进入高速发展阶段,这意味这印度发展模式将会更长,经济增速可能会更低,以超长期的中高速增长为表现。 目前印度城市化率和增速为35%和0.5%,低于越南、孟加拉国的38%和0.8%,印度并未进入高速城市化阶段,但近些年来已经提速。 印度城市化较慢,是可能来源于劳务改革和征地改革滞后,参考中国高速城市化和90年代劳务改革的相关性,可能劳务市场僵化导致的岗位不足是主要障碍。 印度目前的高增长是依赖于少数高增加值岗位,并且由这部分劳动力的消费扩散效应,带动经济增长,具有鲜明的资金密集型和技术密集型特征。 印度目前以0.5%的城市化增速创造7%的高增长,而越南、孟加拉国则是以0.8%的城市化率创造相似增长,印度较少依赖于劳动力部门迁徙产生的“结构变化”(structural change),而越南、孟加拉国创造的非农岗位质量较差。 以城市化率到达50%为转折点,印度至少还需要20年时间,这意味理想情况下印度可以实现20年左右的6%或7%的增长。 考虑到路易斯拐点对经济发展的冲击,城市化发展带动的经济增长,可能会像中国一样区分为两个阶段 中国在2005-2010年路易斯拐点后,经济增长大幅下滑,但是日韩并未出现这一情况,直到城市化完成后才出现增速换挡。 印度、越南和孟加拉国三国可能在路易斯拐点前维持7%的高增长,或者6%的中高速增长 在路易斯拐点后,由于劳动力逐步短缺,有可能会像中国一样出现增速换档。如果出现类似于东南亚金融危机等,潜在增长最低下降至4%。 印度、越南和孟加拉国的人口红利问题 人口红利应该是东亚国家才出现的特殊人口现象,越南确实是有明显的人口红利,而且还会持续15-20年,印度则并不明显。 根据劳动经济学研究,人口红利出现的条件是:要在30年内将总和生育率从4降低至2,如果这种人口转型要限制在20年以内,会很明显。 这背后的机制是在30年的一代人时间内,出生人口大幅度减少,而上一代劳动力又非常多,导致工作和储蓄的人口比重上升,不事生产和消费的人口比重下降。随着这一代人老去,人口红利转化为人口负债。 越南总和生育率从4降低至2的时间约为15年,有非常明显的人口红利,并且推断这个窗口期为2000-2040年,目前处于人口红利的中间阶段。 印度人口转型大概用了25-30年,应该没有明显人口红利,印度人口红利窗口期从2015年左右开始,并可能持续至2055年。由于其人口转型缓慢,人口抑制效应可能会远至2060乃至2065年。 越南的人口红利会额外带来1%的增长,印度仅仅为0.5%。 印度的教育问题 @司马懿 老师已经说了R&D研发问题,主要谈谈教育问题。印度的教育问题被国内极度高估,印度教育系统产出的各级学生只比中国多,不比中国少。而印度教育问题不在于普及,而在于教育质量低: 印度研发占GDP比重仅仅为0.7%,越南近些年来从0.3%提升至0.5%,孟加拉国最低,仅仅为0.2%,都抑制了知识密集型产业发展 印度文盲问题主要是有2.5-3亿的存量文盲,这接近于中国90年代的情况,但是新一代教育情况较好。 印度10年级以前的教育基本普及,12级的高中教育普及率约为一半,大学教育普及率大概是27%。 从中国历史来看,中国2000年左右大概做到80%的义务教育覆盖率,印度十级小学初中教育覆盖率约为中国2000年水平。印度11和12级高中教育普及率超过一半,约为中国2005年水平,如果考虑到印度9级教育并不算为高中教育,那么实际上高中教育普及率比中国2005年略高。 由于印度适龄教育人口更多,印度目前高等教育人口已经和中国相当,都在4000万左右。而印度高中每年级的在校人数约为1200万,已经比中国当下高了200万人。印度教育系统产出的各级学生只比中国多,不比中国少。 因此印度教育已经产出了足够多的学生,但是教育质量低,这个看PISA结果就知道了。阿玛蒂亚森的《不确定荣耀》有专篇讨论印度教育质量低劣的问题,根据相关研究,印度学生学力大概要比学级低2年左右。 印度、越南和孟加拉国的投资主导式增长问题 从支出法来看,印度、越南和孟加拉国的最终消费(私人加上政府消费)占GDP比重为71%、75%和76%,而越南和孟加拉国投资(总固定资产形成)分别为27%和30%。而根据不变价和现价基准,印度投资为32.5%和28.6%。 中国最终消费和投资比重约为55%和45%,印度、越南和孟加拉国不符合中国经验。 日韩城市化分别于1970年初和1990年初完成,投资比重持续上涨,至城市化完成后开始逐步下滑 日韩路易斯拐点分别为1960年初和1970年初,投资比重分别为30%和20-25%,其实都差不多,所谓的投资不足问题被高估。 印度的投资问题在于公共投资中的基建和房地产部分偏低,抑制了城市化带动的经济增长,但是私人投资效率较高。 越南则和印度相反,拥有较为强劲的基建和房地产投资,公共部门投资能力强,但是公共部门投资效率低,私人投资少且效率也相比较低。 所以印度的累积资本产出比(ICOR)大概是4.5,近些年可能提升至5以上,越南则为6乃至更高,印度投资效率较越南更高。 印度、越南和孟加拉国投资比重较拉美国家更高,拉美国家高速增长时期投资比重仅为20%,这意味着长期潜力较拉美国家应该较高,不应该简单比较。 为什么说这些国家是消费主导型增长? 由于最终消费占比更高,经济周期体现了更明显的耐用品消费的特性,以住房、汽车为主的耐用品消费是经济增长的推动力。 2018年9月,印度非银金融公司IL&FS违约,虽然其主营业务是基建融资,但非银金融公司还往往为住房和汽车融资,这导致消费快速下滑,进而引发经济萧条。 印度和越南的贸易问题比较正常,但是孟加拉国贸易逆差较为严重 印度和孟加拉国有非常严重的贸易逆差问题,越南也仅仅保持贸易平衡,这其实对应萨缪尔森对发展过程中国际收支问题四阶段论的第一阶段,即“该国存在贸易逆差,贸易逆差由资本和金融账户顺差来弥补,在这一阶段,国际收支结构为'逆差+顺差'形式”。 日本同发展阶段的历史过于久远,而韩国的数据表明,韩国高增长时期总是伴随高逆差,最多时期高达12%。 中国由于接受了大量外资投资,存在外资创造顺差的现象,但是并不会创造额外的增加值,越南也有类似现象。但是日韩国家并不存在大规模吸收外资投资的情况,因此韩国高增长伴随巨额逆差。 因此印度和越南的贸易情况都比较正常,分别接近大多数发展中国家和中国的情况,但是孟加拉国国际收支问题较为严重。 印度的外债问题不算严重,越南外债负担已经接近警戒线,孟加拉国严重依赖于外援 外债容易导致国际收支危机,进而导致长期增长潜力大幅损失,安全标准包括:外债负债率(外债余额与国内生产总值之比)、债务率(外债余额与贸易出口收入之比)、偿债率(外债还本付息额与贸易出口收入之比)、短期外债与外汇储备,安全线分别为20%、100%、20%和100%。 印度债务率约为150%高于安全线,其余都在安全范围内,反映了印度出口竞争力差。 越南外债负债率已经接近50%的警戒线,外债规模过高。由于大进大出的贸易模式高估了出口数据,债务率和偿债率被低估,风险偏高。 孟加拉国的外债负债率、债务率均高于安全线,并且2016年来孟加拉国外债增速高达20%,风险在三国中最高。 印度近些年来的改革进展,越南和孟加拉国不懂不谈 莫迪政府目前的改革依旧集中于资本要素领域,主要改革是2017年的税制改革,但是2018年末出现经济萧条、2020年受疫情冲击,直到2021年下半年度过delta这波后才显现出现效果: 印度税制改革成功将全国各邦的间接税统一,2021/22财年增值税占GDP比重为7%,接近中国营改增后、减税降费前水平。 尽管2019年对企业和个人减税,但是2022/23财年到现在,企业税和个人所得税的直接税依旧有50%左右的增幅。税制改革以及后续改革较为成功,提升了印度征税能力和经济正规化程度。 印度整体税收占GDP比重提升到20%左右,基本达到中国预算内税收的比重。但中国土地出让金比重高达8%,此外还有5%以上的社保收入,除此之外还有国企收入、公积金等社保收入,所以政府总收入超过GDP的35%,这保证中国财政实力远超发展中国家,并且有能力进行大规模建设,印度没有足够的财力进行公共投资。 由于税收比重仅20%,印度政府的公共投资只有不到1000亿美元,也就是2-3%的GDP。印度需要进一步提升税收,一个方面是增加一些土地收入——需要先做起来房地产市场,一方面是大幅增加社保收入。 增值税对高技术产业竞争力的提升越来越明显,但没有对劳动密集型产业有太多影响。以印度长期弱势的机械制造和较有优势的交通设备(machinery and transport equipment)为例,2011年至税制施行前的2016年,长期停滞在四五百亿美元。尽管税制改革后很快进入萧条期,出口也有下滑,但是该类产品大幅提升至623亿美元,疫情后超过700亿美元。 印度的银行改革,主要是处理坏账问题 银行改革是印度资本领域的另一项大改革,由于疫情影响,大概于2022年完成的银行坏账清理依旧需要两年时间,之后印度才能结束去杠杆过程,重新增加信贷资源: 2011年后印度经济放缓的直接原因是坏账积累,信贷增速大幅下滑,疫情前已经低至5%。 2018年前印度已进行破产法、银行注资等多项改革,疫情前总不良贷款比例已逐步下降,目前已经降低至6%。 受疫情影响,预期于2022年末坏账降低至3%的安全范围,仍需要额外两年时间。比较积极的是,疫情中印度央行预测的坏账大幅反弹至12%-14%,也并未出现。 印度银行要在基本整理完资产负债表问题后,才能结束长达十年之久的去杠杆过程,重新增加信贷推动增长。 印度还有一些重量级改革,像是统一全国的劳动法改革,虽然说是今年各邦可以清理好本地法规,但是可能还是要继续延期。如果改革通过,可以大幅度提升产业竞争力,并且可能会提振劳动密集型产业的竞争力。 而另一个重量级改革是征地法改革,印度目前也进行了灵巧细碎的改革,但是集中于土地征收流程、资金募集和法规限制,并未对征地矛盾做什么改革。征地改革至少也要放到下一个五年任期了——如果莫迪还有雄心壮志的话。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 天涯明月刀 点击下载 271 个回答,查看全部。 白重恩对话斯宾塞表示「中国经济的相对高增长将至少持续到下个十年」,这意味着什么? 如何评价李稻葵在演讲中分享的研究心得:过去两年的抗疫相当于为每个中国人多增加10天寿命?

  • 「合伙人」

    知乎每日精选 · Wed, 06 Jul 2022 12:27:56 +0800

    过去几年VC行业的合伙人不太够用了,虽然行业已经量产了,但是越来越多的情况都需要「合伙人」抬头,让我们这个行业的「合伙人」抬头一度很水。现在经济下行,行业调整,「合伙人」的含金量多了一些,但还是有很多场景对于这个 SKU 需求过大,其实是前几年 QE 放水的后遗症,未来估计这个品类会慢慢恢复正常。 我很久以前写过一篇建议大家重视投资经理的文章,现在我还是这个观点:VC本身是一个需要为前途未卜的企业站台的业务,是一个信任层层传递的过程,不像PE/Buyout是一个定价和交易为主的业务。VC的标的绝大多数情况下都还称不上「资产」,基本上就是两杆枪和一句话的事,而PE的标的基本都是成名的地标性企业,都可以用DCF来算账,只是一个「谁」投资的问题。所以才有多年前讲KKR Nabisco案例的野蛮人系列,引人入胜,也有单伟建前辈单枪匹马拉着TPG去收购韩国第一银行的故事。PE都是资产驱动的。VC都是故事驱动的。 在互联网已经收场的今天,行业百废待兴,除了大家众口一词的半导体国产替代和新能源走向全球两件事以外,还有很多日新月异的新技术在发芽,这些领域不像互联网,没法一通百通,所以才有人前两天说VC在高薪囤积化学博士。但化学博士们不是一上来就是合伙人的。中国VC的合伙人大部分都是从互联网时代成长起来的,另外一个阵营是医疗。TMT基金们今天已经转型成为技术投资者和倡导者,化学博士、生物博士、计算机博士……我们终于摆脱了这个行业「低学历」的历史(曾经有个小姑娘刚刚考上哥大的博士,听我介绍完背景之后直接说:「你们这个行业好像学历要求不高……」让我忽然哑语)。 但其实合伙人懂得不多。有上进心的老同志努力跟进时代,天天看公众号,但专业知识上距离自己的 Associate / VP 仍然相差很远。就算去报个在职研究生甚至博士,大部分都是化妆而已,就像我去请教CNS的教授,老人家说完全不知道免疫是怎么回事,问免疫的主任,人家对CMC工艺细节基本没经验……隔行如隔山在科技领域里非常明显;顾不过来的基本在用外包专家网络来进行项目筛选。很多跃跃欲试要创业的专家教授们一旦开始纠结「为什么我见的不是合伙人」就陷入了GP们非要见引导基金党委书记的怪圈:他不懂你,你不懂他。 其实大家过于纠结于抬头了。如果你面对的是一家市场化机构,那么你见的人越多,你在内部获得的理解可能就越多,而创业者会非常需要机构内部真正懂技术和业务的专家来做内部推荐,这些专家经常是「投资经理」或者「投资总监」,在VC行业,职级是非常扁平的,从来都是谁有业绩谁上,而合伙人的核心功能其实是募资,就像科技创业创始人的一样,我们都需要募资;如果你面对的是国字头,那么这一层级的专家就更加重要,因为合伙人可能你都见不上几次,大家都要向上看,向上沟通,VC的合伙人们不也是天天追着母基金的投资总监们吗? 所以呼吁大家别凡事就要合伙人参加了,我们合伙人的名片上也没抬头,和我们行政小姑娘的名片长得一样。作为一名从2007年就开始有这个抬头的从业人员,我觉得年轻同事比我懂得都多,我天天追着他们问,所以建议大家也追着他们,他们才是真正推动项目往前走的核心力量。大家多关注点实质,少在意些形式,在今天这样一个乱糟糟的市场里面,一起做一些靠谱赚钱有潜力的项目,不香么? 说着说着我可能又得罪了不少同行,所以最后再为中老年合伙人正一下名:我们最大的价值可能在于经历的行业周期多,没有在市场暴涨之后退休高尔夫,也没有在暴跌之后挥别江湖,所以在一些大周期的投资决策中有一些优势,对于判断国内政策有一些积累,在技术和产品方面我们虚心向团队请教,但在动作急缓上我们确实更有发言权。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 熊伟铭 点击下载

  • 甘肃省甘南州值得一去吗?

    知乎每日精选 · Wed, 06 Jul 2022 10:33:52 +0800

    2020年秋天,我在甘肃甘南州拍摄了《围城随笔》系列纪录片的第六集《点亮的地平线》,这34分钟的长片,前后花了我三个月来拍摄和整理制作——记录了我在甘南游历的壮美风光和旅途中的所见所闻,这条自驾路线途径包括网称“人间仙境”的扎尕那、洛克之路(江迭公路)、甘加秘境、古叠州城遗址等,在我所有的自驾旅行里完全值得上升到我心里的不得不去的TOP5。 除了拍摄时一个月的沉浸式感受,制作过程中对国内国外的历史信息,当地农牧林业的相关政策文件,我都花了相当多的时间去搜寻和研究,而在这个过程里,我也了解到了甘南以及迭部为了扶贫脱困所作出的大量努力,真心希望这里越来越好。 去年的五一假期好多观众和读者也给我发来了甘南的“远方回声“,一切依旧如我所见所感。 真正的精华藏在村前村后茂密的森林里的扎尕那 前几年,网络平台铺天盖地的对扎尕那的形容——“人间天堂“,”伊甸园“以及”最后香巴拉”这,让我在到达这个地方之前并没有太大的兴趣。嗨,网络宣传嘛!谁不知道呢! 直到我远远看见“扎尕那山”为止:由于落差大,所以现场看上去的那种体量感,确实跟照片和视频里的它有着巨大差距——这是我在疫情之后第一次出远门,所以看啥啥都好。 就我的理解,扎尕那村以及村中密密麻麻的民宿是整个光盖山区,探索自然景观的大本营,即交通枢纽和补给站。 因为扎尕那真正的精华,被藏在了村前村后茂密的森林里,以及这里通向光盖山深处的石门后。随意找一条沟往里深入,你会发现原来扎尕那不是在村中,而是雪藏在这些石灰岩峡谷背后——那里,才是真正的原始森林和桃源秘境。请个向导再往上走,就是当地人的高山牧场,和洛克当年真正走过的【洮叠古道】东西线。 “洛克之路”,冰川造就的远古巨兽 甘南光盖山深处的洛克之路,是我心中风光Top5的自驾之路 这条路,自驾去过的人不算少,但从全国自驾游的尺度来看,就算是到了如今,那也算是小众中的极小众。其中风景最为精华,最为无敌的路段,集中在光盖山的囊黑卡(也叫那黑卡,纪录片里有注解)到与“车巴沟”汇合的路段。 自从2020年12月纪录片发布以来,很多朋友先后前往了,尤其在今年的五一长假大家都给我发来了“远方回声”,可惜那时囊黑卡以西积雪覆盖无法通行。6月以后就迎来这条路最美的时候了。随便放几张图以供舔屏。 从囊黑卡(那黑卡)以西到江迭公路垭口的30公里是这条路最最精华的部分,大部分是在几乎完美的冰槽谷里穿行。根据一份地质考察资料,据说最盛时期,这里的冰川有120m厚。 古老的冰川消融之后,露出了一个发育完美的U形谷;高大的云杉在这里自由自在的生长,这每一棵云杉,都像是城里的每一栋高楼,只是在这座绿色城市里,没有车水马龙,只有鸟语花香。在这种巨大山谷里穿行,一切都显得微不足道......我觉得在这个山谷里住上三天,应该是对这种极致美景最起码的尊重。 光盖山下的山谷郁郁葱葱,这里的景象跟光盖山中完全不同,没有那种古老恒远的气场,而是那种country road take me home的小调牧歌。 临近尼巴村时,你会惊喜的发现你的手机不再是砖头,它已经通过尼巴村的手机信号基站,连接到了山谷外的世界。尼巴村有个旅游特色,叫做【百年藏寨】;大致是错落有致的藏式吊脚楼布满了村北的山坡,而这连接坡上坡下的走廊通道,也是由吊脚形式的木质栈道构成。据说存在已有两百年的历史,目前这些老藏寨内还有当地人在居住。洮河自西向东把尼巴村分隔为两个区域,上图的左侧便是之前所提到的【百年藏寨】;而随着道路的连通和扶贫政策的实施,大部分村民早已搬迁到了右侧平坦的河岸新建房屋。所以洮河像是尼巴村的一条历史分割线,分隔了一旧一新的两个尼巴。 甘南最后的秘密,甘加秘境 这里有安多藏区的最高学府,拉卜楞寺。 甘加白石崖粗看上去地质构造类似洛克之路深处的光盖山,但是视觉体验还是有所不同。在这里,几百米高的石墙在草原上突然一字排开,抬头远眺会觉得它们像海浪一样朝你席卷而来。在早上的时候,不断有云雾在崖壁堆积,并且通过那道裂缝不断进出于山谷之中,你别说,确实有种秘境的感觉。你也可以沿着白石崖峡谷往上,可以到达崖顶的牧场。 白石崖下神秘的【八角古城】 目前村内没有任何的民宿酒店,也没有吃饭喝酒可消费的地方;而城中村民似乎也并不是当年守城将士们的后裔,因为这座城池曾经被废弃过,彼时的兵马也是弃城而散,有个说法是,直到清末民初人口迁徙时,客走他乡的路人才发现此地,并决定在此定居和繁衍。所以对于八角城的历史而言,也只剩下老人们从祖辈那里得来的零散传说。 在这里,还有一条小众得不能再小众的密道,从黄土高原过渡到青藏高原—— 被废弃的丝绸之路,风景绝佳,鲜为人知,但太过惊险刺激 更多旅行细节,可观看我的甘南自驾旅行纪录片,阅读游记,另有攻略路书可直接复制前往 在远方的阿伦:甘肃以南,雪藏深闺的无敌路线,我要在此做个吃泡面的神仙144 赞同 · 30 评论文章 在远方的阿伦 点击下载 64 个回答,查看全部。 甘肃崆峒山值得一去吗?为什么? 甘肃省武威市有哪些旅游景点?

  • 基于方言之间的预测相似度进行方言聚类

    知乎每日精选 · Tue, 05 Jul 2022 20:49:06 +0800

    问题 去年,我在基于自编码器的方言祖语音系嵌入中尝试根据某个字在多个方言点中的读音对字进行聚类,实际上,由于这些读音构成了以字为行、以方言点为列的矩阵,一个自然的推广就是用类似的方法对方言点也进行聚类,借助聚类的结果辅助考察方言之间的亲缘关系。 但是方言点和字音不同的是,方言之间相似不一定蕴含方言字音之间相同或相似。举个极端的情况,如果 a 方言读 x 的字在 b 方言无例外都读 y,同时 a 方言读 y 的字在 b 方言无例外都读 x,从表面的音值看 a、b 两种方言是截然相反的,但是在音类上却极其相似,因为两者可以通过非常简单的规则相互推导出来。 甚至有时这种音值的差异不是方言语音本身造成的,而仅仅是不同来源的材料处理的偏好不同造成的。比如广州和湛江的方言相当接近,两者都有一套咝音,这套咝音在不同的人、不同的条件有不同的变体,由于记音宽严的差别,或者由于其他音系以外的因素,《珠江三角洲方言调查报告》把广州的咝音记成 s,而《粤西湛茂地区粤语语音研究》把湛江对应的咝音记成 ʃ。如果不加处理地直接对比原始字音,其结果就是大量的字音不同,从而得出广州和湛江的方言差异很大的结论。这是比较方法以外的、材料层面的因素对分析结果造成的影响,必须先行消除。 数学描述 方言比较关心的是音类而非音值的相关性。具体地说,一个方言的音类可以表示成由若干个等价类构成的集合 每个等价类 是字的集合,同类的所有字都同音。 所谓同音,是指方言的字音可以表示为从字集合到音节集合的映射 或写成函数的形式 其中 为所有方言字的集合, 为方言所有音节的集合。如 。一组字在某个方言的同音关系上构成等价类,是指这些字通过该方言的上述映射函数都映射到相同音节 这些等价类构成了对方言字集合 的一个划分,只与映射函数的关系有关,而与映射结果的具体值无关。如果方言 a 的所有音类划分和方言 b 相同, ,则说 a 音类和 b 音类相同,方言的具体音值不影响比较结果。 需要说明的是上文的描述及下文的讨论中提到的字并不是指字符层面的汉字,而是指隐含在汉字表面下的不可拆分的字音单位,对汉语来说,通常对应于一个单音节语素。之所以需要做这么细微的区分是因为存在一字多音的情况,有些多音字对应了不同的义项,这些是大部分方言共有的,还有一些方言中的一字多音是由于存在多个语音层次造成的。确定 a 方言的某个字某个音对应于 b 方言的哪个字哪个音,或简单地称之为字音对齐,是一项极其繁琐的工作,这里不再展开。 相似度计算方法 上文通过字音映射函数以及集合划分定义了方言音类,在此基础上,在 的情况下,怎样度量 和 的相似性呢?一种角度是概率分布的观点。在概率观点下,音值 作为随机变量形成了一个离散的分布,其概率函数为 其中 取平均分布 对于确定的字音映射函数来说 在上述模型下,方言 a 和 b 音类的相似度表现为音值的条件分布,极端情况下,如果 a 方言的 x 总是对应 b 方言的 y,则 ,反之亦然。 最简单的方法是使用 和 的共现频率来估计条件概率。 条件熵 @王赟 Maigo 在9978 方言音系/韵母“存古度”的一种定量描述中提出了一种使用条件熵来度量方言之间的这种分布相似度的方法。条件熵(conditional entropy) 量化了随机变量 的出现为随机变量 提供了多少确定性。 越小, 预测 的能力越强。 条件熵是单向的,即 。这很好理解,a 方言能推导 b 方言,反过来不一定成立。为了得到对称性,使用 作为 a、b 方言之间的距离。对此直观的解释是,如果 a 方言可以预测 b 方言,同时 b 方言也可以预测 a 方言,那么这两种方言是相似的。条件熵作为距离有一个很好的性质 即任一方言到它自己的距离为0。 在实际操作中,统计的粒度细到音节会使统频率数据过于稀疏,降低结果可信度,比如说某个音节辖字极少,其中某个字由于偶然的原因读音不规则,或者仅仅由于使用的材料没有收录某个字的读音,都会大大影响统计出的概率。为了提高结果健壮性,对条件熵 切分为声母、韵母、声调作一些近似,把 拆分成声母、韵母、声调的三元组 分别计算条件熵。 上式最后一步的近似的考虑为,存在这样一种情况,a 方言的声母不能预测 b 方言的声母,但是 a 方言的声母加韵母、或者声母加声调能预测 b 方言的声母,只统计声母之间的条件熵会这种预测能力抹杀掉。例如广州的 p 对应上海的 p、b,单独根据广州的 p 不能预测上海是 p 还是 b,但是再增加考虑声调是阴调还是阳调其实是可以预测的。基于这一点,分别统计 a 方言声母和韵母、声母和声调联合分布对 b 方言声母的条件熵,取其中较小者。 举 为例 其中 分别表示字到声母、韵母的映射函数。上式的条件概率可以通过统计样本的频率估算得到。 卡方检验 本质上,上述方法中的互信息量度量的是方言之间预测的能力,因此可以尝试使用其他度量指标来代替,比如说特征选择中用的比较多的卡方检验(chi-square test)。卡方检验的思路是假设 和 是独立随机变量,由此它们分组统计共现得到的 统计量符合自由度为 的卡方分布 其中 表示每组期望出现的频次,一般通过统计频率估计, 表示实际观察到的频次,自由度 由分组数量得到。然后根据卡方分布的累积分布函数计算 对应的剩余概率 , 越大, 越小,说明实际情况偏离假设越多, 和 越不可能相互独立,或者反过来说, 和 越相关。 理论上说,由于不同方言对的自由度 不同,在进行方言之间相似度比较时,应该比较置信度 而不是直接比较 值。但由于方言之间的相关性足够显著,即使差别很大的方言之间也是如此,统计出来的 值普遍很大,导致对应的 值下溢为0,无法使用。另一方面这些 的自由度 也足够大,根据卡方分布的定义及中心极限定理,当 趋向正无穷时, 趋向于高斯分布 标准化之后 从而允许比较 值的大小,方言之间的 值越大,表明越相似。 为了降低统计数据的稀疏性,采用和条件熵类似的、 分声母、韵母、声调统计 $\chi^2$ 的处理方法。所不同的是,卡方检验对于 和 是对称的。为了保持这种对称性,在拆分统计共现矩阵的时候对 和 的处理也是对称的,即统计 a 方言的声母韵母组合、和 b 方言的声母韵母组合的共现矩阵的 值,如此类推。最后取所有 值的平均。 由此,方言两两之间的 值组成了方言之间的相似度矩阵 ,该矩阵经过一定的变换可以得到和条件熵相似的距离矩阵。 数据 以下统计分析使用中国语言资源保护工程采录展示平台的汉语方言字音数据,使用其中的方言老男单字音。共1287个方言点,每点收录1000个单字音,有些点一个字有多个音,有些点个别字缺数据。 数据概览: 方言点数单字数记录数 128710041341693 广州的数据样例: iidfinalsinitialtonename 0001ɔt53多 0002ɔth53拖 0003ait22大 0004ɔl21锣 0005ɔtʃ35左 对于方言中一字多音的情况,只取每个字在该方言的第一个读音,由于语保的数据格式规范,实际通过字 ID 做了字级别的对齐,而且往往把白读排在文读的前面,这样简单处理对结果的影响较小。 相似度结果 条件熵 对上述方言两两一对使用上述卡方统计计算相似性,得到1278 × 1278的相似度矩阵和距离矩阵。对归一化的相似度矩阵分别使用 SVD、spectral embedding 和 t-SNE 降维,结果如下图所示,方言点在图中的距离越近表示越相似。 汉语方言条件熵降维散点图 下图是从中抽样100个方言点的距离矩阵热度图。 抽样100方言条件熵相似度距离热度图 把上述 spectral embedding 降维的结果映射到 CIE L*a*b 色度,然后标注在地图上,就得到方言相似度地图,方言点的颜色越接近表示越相似。 汉语方言相似度地图条件熵 卡方相似度 汉语方言卡方相似度降维散点图抽样100方言卡方距离热度图 方言聚类 得到方言点之间的相似度或距离矩阵之后,就可以对该矩阵实施各种聚类算法。由于矩阵不代表方言点在欧氏空间中的位置,因此常用的 K-means 算法不适用。但是可以把该矩阵看成图的邻接矩阵,因此可以应用各种针对图的聚类算法。 下文主要描述根据条件熵计算的聚类结果,只在结果差异较大的时候,适当补充一些根据卡方相似度聚类的结果。需要说明的是,统计的方法受数据扰动影响较大,由于对原始方言读音数据进行了一次较大的清洗修正,部分聚类的结果对比之前放出的版本有较大不同。 条件熵 AP 聚类 首先尝试对原始的相似度矩阵实施 AP 聚类(affinity propagation),但效果不理想,结果就不放出来了。 谱聚类 谱聚类(spectral clustering) 的思想是先把相似度矩阵表示的样本间相似度分解到低维的向量空间,再针对降维后的样本应用 K-means 等基于样本坐标的聚类算法。 使用归一化的相似度矩阵进行谱聚类,设置聚类数量为10,所得结果在不同的降维方法下表示如下图。 汉语方言谱聚类降维散点图条件熵10类 聚类的结果在地图上的分布如下图。 汉语方言谱聚类地图条件熵10类 从图中可以看到,聚类的结果总体体现了主流意见对汉语方言的分类,几大方言区的边界大致都落在聚类的边界上。在划分方言区的同一层级也划分了官话的大区,一些边界也和主流的划分一致。所不同的有以下几点: 雷琼闽语单独分为一类,其他闽语为另一类 赣语和客家话合为一类 长江中游的湘语、一部分西南官话、一部分江淮官话、以及一部分赣语组成一个大类 晋语从北方官话分出,但又和江淮官话合并了,少量应该是保留入声的西南官话也归这一类 北方官话分为两类,一类大致就是中原官话加蓝银官话,另一类包含了北京官话、东北官话、冀鲁官话和胶辽官话,但两类的边界不完全和传统分区重合 一些更细微的观察: 无论桂南平话还是桂北平话都没有分立,归入粤语同一类 湘南粤北土话大部分归入湘语一类,一部分归客家话,少数归粤语 通泰归北吴 层次聚类 从传统观点来看,方言之间的亲缘关系是树状的,因此更适合使用层次聚类。层次聚类(hierarchical clustering) 每次按样本的距离和计算子树间距离的方法,取距离最小的两棵子树合并,直到所有样本合并为一类。由此生成的结果是树状图,树状图可以直观地表示出方言在什么层级被分开到不同的子树。层次聚类和树状图的不便之处是当方言数量很多的时候树状图会非常庞大,而且通常各个分支下面的方言数量会非常悬殊,不便于查看。 需要注意的是层次聚类的结果不能直接等同于方言谱系树,层次聚类的依据是方言之间的距离而不是历史上的亲缘关系。虽然在计算方言相似度和距离时谨慎地消除了具体音值的影响,但方言音类相似度和亲缘关系之间的相关性还没经过严格检验,特别是存在方言接触产生的影响,使得相似度计算的结果和真实的亲缘关系不相称。因此在检验了具体方言的音类细节之前,层次聚类的结果只是作为参考。 对距离矩阵实施层次聚类,最开始分出来的是湘西南、桂东北的一些很小的分支,以及零星的单点方言,第一次分离的大分支是闽语和非闽语。截取树状图的最根部如下图: 汉语方言树状图条件熵 较早区分闽语和非闽语这一点符合部分学者认为闽语和其他方言关系较远的观点。然后非闽语在分出了徽语等较小的分支之后,其主体部分分成了南北两大支,南支包含吴语、大部分赣语、客家话、粤语和平话,另一支则依次分出一小部分赣语、湘语、一小部分江淮官话,最终官话的主体和晋语,超过样本半数的方言点,全部挤在剩余的一个末端分支上。 下面是根据树状图分成64类的降维散点图和地图,在这个层级上,各大类大致沿着传统分区的边界划分,官话和晋语为一类,赣语、客家话、粤语、平话为一类,吴语为一类,而闽语已经细分到方言片一级了。 汉语方言层次聚类降维散点图条件熵64类汉语方言层次聚类地图条件熵64类 举其中方言数较少而分支比较丰富的闽语为例,下图是闽语方言之间的距离热度图: 汉语方言距离热度图条件熵闽语 闽南语和闽东语分别构成了两个大聚类中心,闽南内部的潮汕、漳州又构成了次一级的中心。而内陆闽语和雷琼闽语虽然数量也不少,但是和其他闽语的距离较远,内部相互也不集中。 下面的树状图和聚类地图也反映了这种情况,在树状图上,雷琼闽语很早就分出来,然后依次是闽中和莆仙。剩余的主体分成闽南和闽东两大支,闽南语中比较大的子群有泉州和厦门、漳州、潮汕。较低层级的大子群大致对应了历史上大的行政中心,比如福州、泉州、漳州、潮州。 汉语方言树状图条件熵闽语 下图是上述树状图分成10类的地图,可见在总的树状图较小的分支上,仍然表现出了马太效应,在其他闽语已经分得比较细碎的层级上,闽南、闽东和莆仙还没有从沿海闽语分出来。 汉语方言层次聚类地图条件熵闽语10类 再举规模较大的官话为例,官话的雏形分出来之后,又经过了很多层级的分化才显得比较均衡的样子,之前一直是一支独大。这时南方官话、北方官话、较早就单独分为一支的长江中游的官话、以及在不同层级分出来的几支晋语在树状图中才初具规模,而从树根到这些分支的共组已经经过了6次分化,每次分为10类。 汉语方言树状图条件熵官话 下图是在官话主体的树状图又往下一个层级分10类得到的地图,这样各类的数量才显得均衡一点。 汉语方言层次聚类地图条件熵官话10类 江淮官话除一部分已经在早前分出以外,剩余的部分这时仍然和西南官话合为一类。北方除了一部分晋语已经先一步分出,剩余的晋语也在这一层分出为一类,胶辽官话也单独分为一类,剩余包括传统分区的北京官话、东北官话、冀鲁官话、胶辽官话、中原官话、兰银官话,在这个层级仍然合在一大类。值得一提的是,此后又经过了4次、总共11次分化,北京官话和东北官话才开始分离,按本文的相似度度量方法来看,传统分区在大区一级划分北京官话和东北官话确实过分苛细了。 最后是包含大多数南方汉语的一支,这一支作为一个整体较早从非闽语中分离,包括传统的吴语、大部分赣语、客家话、粤语和平话。下图是这一支的树状图: 汉语方言树状图条件熵吴赣客粤语 虽然树状图显示从这一支分离的顺序依次为吴语、粤语,最后是赣语和客家话,但它们分离的节点非常接近,可以认为是相互非常独立的分支。。粤语首先分出粤北的零星方言点和桂北平话,然后是四邑片,剩余的主体部分分成两支,一支是桂南平话和部分勾漏片,另一支包括大部分狭义的粤语。客家话首先分出四川、重庆等地的方言岛,然后是江西、福建的几支本地客家话,然后是东江本地话,剩余的部分其主要分支即为核心客家话。 根据树状图分10类得到的地图反映出吴、赣客、粤平三分的情况。 汉语方言层次聚类地图条件熵吴赣客粤语10类 卡方相似度 谱聚类 使用卡方相似度进行谱聚类的结果如下图: 汉语方言谱聚类地图卡方10类 和条件熵差别较大的地方有如下几点: 北方官话和晋语合在一起分两大类,西边的一类包括晋语、中原官话西边的部分、和兰银官话,东边的一类包括北京官话、东北官话、冀鲁官话、胶辽官话、和中原官话东边的部分。 赣语、湘语、以及长江中游的一部分官话合并成了一个大类。 层次聚类 使用卡方距离的层次聚类倒是把沿海闽语和内陆闽语都归在了一类,但内陆闽语仍然非常早就和沿海闽语分开,紧接着分出的是雷琼闽语。从距离热度图也可以看出,这两类和其他闽语的相似度非常低。 汉语方言距离热度图卡方闽语汉语方言树状图卡方闽语汉语方言层次聚类地图卡方闽语10类 官话上的层次聚类结果和条件熵差别较大,胶辽官话最先分出,然后是西北地区的一部分兰银官话。除此以外,在如下地图的层级上,剩余的北方官话更早地分成了东西两大类,而南方官话还是合而不分。 汉语方言树状图卡方官话汉语方言层次聚类地图卡方官话10类 不足及改进 相似度计算的不足 在计算方言之间相似度的时候,为了平衡数据准确性和平滑性,做了很多琐碎的处理,这些处理还没有得到严格的证明。更好的办法是找到平滑的、最好是参数化的方法来估计 ,但是这样通常会增加计算方言对的耗时。 在计算 时假设每个字的出现是等概率的,或者说每条样本对期望的贡献一样大,实际情况不是这样的。特别是在对比不同来源的材料时,不同材料调查记录的字集可能会很不同,是否包含数量较多的非常用字会对统计结果有较大影响。处理这个问题的困难在于,反映方言用字频率的语料非常稀缺。另一方面,在统计两个方言相似度时,应该怎样折合两个方言的字频呢? 文章开头已经提到了字音对齐的困难,即确定 a 方言的某个字某个音对应 b 方言的哪个字哪个音不是一件显而易见的事情,这个问题不仅出现在一字多音的情况,而且出现在有音无字、或者不同方言用了不同俗字借字的情况。在进行词汇级别的对比的时候就更是如此。本文通过简单地取每个字的第一个读音回避了这个问题。改进思路是采用迭代的方法启发式地寻找跨方言的字音对应,这是一项庞大的工作,做完这一步,所有方言的音变规律基本也都找到了。 聚类的不足 上文已经指出聚类的结果不能等同于方言历史上的发生关系,但是仍然希望聚类的结果对方言谱系树有一定的启示。当前的方法无论从理论还是从聚类结果显示的一些情况来说,对这方面的支持还很欠缺。 本文使用的聚类方法只是沿用了常规算法对距离的简单处理,并没有对方言的生成过程建模。方言相似并不等于同源,在分析方言谱系的时候,一些方面的区别比另一些更加核心和本质,这些因素不一定能通过总体的相似度表现出来。例如罗杰瑞在《What is a Kejia Dialect?》中深有见地地指出,客家话鼻流音调类两分,可以和闽语的表现关联,应能追溯到共同祖语的清鼻流音。凭这一点,客家话应该很早就和赣语分开。但是这个特征体现的字不够多,被其他大量客家话和赣语的共同点所掩盖,其结果是谱聚类把赣语和客家话分了在一类。 方言音类相似也可能是由共同存古造成的,另一方面,由于语言接触引起的共同创新,和较小概率的音变巧合,音类相似在反映共同创新上也不太可靠。上面谱聚类的结果把晋语和江淮官话归为一类,可能就是因为它们都存古保存了入声,并且在入声韵、调的简并方面巧合了。层次聚类在处理晋语和官话的关系的时候,把通常认为的晋语分了三大批次从官话中分离出来,而不是作为一个整体一次分出,可能就是因为接触趋同影响了方言之间的相似性,而不是因为通常认为的晋语在来源上真的不统一。 反之当语言接触引起的借用深到一定程度,会造成边界位置的方言距两边的距离都较远,从而被层次聚类错误地安排在较顶层的分支。层次聚类最开始分出来的都是湘桂交界一带的方言,每支都只有一两个点,很难说每个方言都古老且独立,也可能是周边的方言以各种不同的方式借用混合,从而产生了多种多样和周边都不同的方言。 改进方向 本文度量方言相似度的方法只考虑了音类,音类在方言比较上很重要,但有时对比音值的相似性也是有意义的。鉴于音标代表的音值是离散值不便度量相似度或距离,因此首先要建立把音值映射到连续空间的方法。我在基于自编码器的方言祖语音系嵌入中提出了一种音系 embedding 的方法,实际上,考虑音值的语音学特征,应该能得到更有代表性的方法。获得了音值的连续表示之后,度量方言之间音值的距离,以及根据音值距离聚类,可以参考上面的方法修改而来。 另一个方向是方言音类的连续表示。本文用非参数化的方法构造了方言之间的相似度矩阵 ,即隐含假设了一个方言音类的连续空间 方言音类矩阵 的行数为方言点数,每一行为该方言在连续空间的向量表示。SVD 降维结果是这个音类矩阵在低维的投影,spectral embedding 则是另一种非线性变换的投影。既然字和方言点分别是字音矩阵的行和列,既然字的 embedding 是可行的,那么方言点的参数化 embedding 应该也是可行的。经过细致设计和训练,应该能找到一个非线性的矩阵分解映射函数 ,以及最优的字矩阵 、方言矩阵 ,使得 即通过字 embedding 和 方言 embedding 最大限度地还原字音矩阵。幸运的话,字 embedding 能表征字的相似度,方言 embedding 能表征方言的相似度,那么, 和 就可以直接拿来比较和聚类。 另一个考虑的角度是相似度矩阵构成了一个图的邻接矩阵,原始的相似度对应于有向图,规范化的相似度对应于无向图。在此基础上可以尝试各种图算法,特别是把图的顶点或子图映射到连续空间的图嵌入(graph embedding)算法。 代码 代码托管在 GitHub,也备份了一份在 Gitee。所有分析过程和图表都在其中的 Jupyter notebook,由于部分算法的随机性,更新后的 notebook 内容主要是地图配色和本文有细微差别,但本质是一样的。 sinetym/dialect_cluster.ipynb at master · lernanto/sinetym (github.com) scripts/zhongguoyuyan/dialect_cluster.ipynb · 黄艺华/sinetym - 码云 - 开源中国 (gitee.com) 黄艺华 点击下载

  • 如何评价特斯拉展示最新采用 4680 电芯的结构性电池组?

    知乎每日精选 · Tue, 05 Jul 2022 17:38:32 +0800

    Munro Live宣布将对特斯拉4680圆柱电池的德克萨斯制造(MIT)特斯拉Model Y进行拆解和分析,这是非常期待的。网上已经有极客做了拆解,7月4号千叶第一时间写了《特斯拉4680电芯拆解报告》,我就着他的分析做一些解读,希望大家能看懂一些。 ▲表1.拆解信息表 Part 1 拆解和测试 ● 特斯拉的4680外壳是否带电 在之前的写法里面,有一句猜测,“4680电芯的钢壳是不带电的,因此不需要再额外的增加绝缘材料,可以让电池系统体积利用率尽可能的提高。”但是随着结构来看,是不对的。 ▲图1.测试电芯电压测量 ● 负极集流盘与盖板 如下图所示,负极集流盘是具有弹性元器件,而负极盖板是电芯四周一圈白色的绝缘材料,中间突出块密封钉,从中心注液后密封,材质应该是铜质密封钉。在特写照片中,电芯的白色绝缘圈清晰可见,在新版的中心注液孔密封材质变化了,对比电池日变更为铜。 ▲图2.4680的负极电芯拆解情况 负极盖板内侧是具有凹槽,与节流盘弹性连接件接触,然后通过一个绝缘环套着,如下图所示。 ▲图3.4680底部绝缘环 负极集流盘设计很有特点,共计6个花瓣,每个花瓣3长2短共5条焊缝,在拆解以后全极耳受损严重。 ▲图4.4680的负极集流盘设计考虑 正极集流盘和负极相似,也是6个花瓣,每个花瓣3长2短共5条焊缝。 (请教了锂解的飞驰同学,更新一下:花瓣的设计主要是为了激光焊时候的公差补偿) ▲图5.正极的集流体形状 两个集流盘的差异为: ● 正极集流盘:花瓣与边缘连接,厚度400um。 ● 负极集流盘:花瓣与中心连接,厚度260um。 两个不同材质的材料估计做了一些阻抗的匹配计算。 ▲图6.正负集流体 这里我们也看到问题了,考虑绝缘的设计,正极绝缘片覆盖整个电芯截面积,因此全极耳所有电流最终汇集到正极极柱,热量集中在正极极柱位置,所以这个估计也是后续要顶部散热(通过外部Busbar)的最主要原因。 ▲图7.4680电池的顶部结构 然后把4680的壳体进行测量,壁厚635微米,圆柱侧面预估质量为58.2g。 ▲图8.计算过程 Part 2 卷芯 4680的卷芯上面使用了,黄色和绿色两种终止胶带。从设计来看,正极涂布与铝箔边缘存在安全间隙,正极铝箔边缘极耳清晰可见,且紧密排列。 ▲图9.正极涂布的特点 ● 卷绕最外层:隔膜长一圈包裹整个卷绕。 ● 卷绕最内层:卷绕最内层隔膜形成卷芯。 ▲图10.电芯的隔膜结构 在这里,我们看到千叶也总结了: ● 在拆解视频中,没有披露我们感兴趣的基本信息未披露,容量,电压,质量,能量密度。 ● 而用基本的万用表测试, OCV测试异常,这个电压太小了。 ● 在内部没有看到泄压阀,如何能保证电芯往下Venting,这里需要用实物测试下。 ● 在顶部的正极绝缘片会降低传热效率,目前来看老的设计中,为了绝缘,所有的电流路径都集中在正极极柱,这使全极耳优势无法发挥。 ● 从外表来看,正极极柱尺寸似乎太小,阻抗是否能满足要求,取决于特斯拉的计算,这里很怀疑是否能够满足将来Super Charging V4散热及内阻要求。 小结:现在电新组的研究比较扎实,黄老大配合千叶,真是一对扎实的二级组合。整体的分析和整理工作都是千叶做的,我在这里做了一点散发工作,希望我们的努力对各位读者有帮助。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 朱玉龙 点击下载 3 个回答,查看全部。 如何看待特斯拉 4680 装车交付在即,硅基负极需求激增? 如何评价特斯拉正式交付首批配备 4680 电池的 Model Y?

  • 如何看待 2022 F1 英国大奖赛周冠宇起步遭遇严重撞车退赛?Halo 系统是什么?

    知乎每日精选 · Tue, 05 Jul 2022 15:48:09 +0800

    同样是发车即撞车的严重事故,Halo又立功了。 北京时间2022年7月3日晚,车手周冠宇被拉塞尔猛烈撞击,他的阿尔法罗密欧C42赛车防滚架第一次触地就惨遭拍碎,此后赛车倒扣滑行了数十米远,巨大的冲击力使得赛车滚过轮胎墙撞上护栏,好在有Halo帮助,周冠宇并无大碍。 两年前,2020年巴林站比赛发车阶段,哈斯车队的法国车手罗曼·格罗斯让也是遭遇了严重的撞车事故,赛车断为两截,好在有Halo,车手仅遭遇肋骨骨折。 | Halo为何方神圣,为什么能屡建奇功 F1赛车起步犹如头顶苹果射飞镖,到底是碰撞事故还是精彩出击就在毫厘之间。这是因为赛车可以在2.5秒内从0加速到100km/h,在5秒钟内达到200km/h,同时又因赛车扎堆,事故一触即发。 我认为Halo的加入,是保证赛车运动精彩程度与赛车安全齐头并进的又一力作。上一个有如此惊艳的保护能力,让众人折服的是碳纤维单体壳车身。 同样是车身有关的安全技术,这两个特点异曲同工,一个是结构新颖,一个是材料新颖。 Halo俗称“人字拖”,既能极大保留方程式赛车的开放式座舱,还能保护车手免受飞行物的侵害,在赛车遭遇翻车事故时,也能作为“车顶”提供保护。 它有多大的保护能力呢?我们用数据说话。 F1赛车的平均时速能达到200km/h~230km/h,所以飞行物撞击是非常危险的,因为Halo的加入,能抵御一颗20kg的轮胎以225km/h径直撞击车手面部。 F1赛车有重量轻的优势,在翻滚中因自重带来的伤害比重较乘用车小,但因为车速太高,翻滚动能极大,好在有Halo,竟能抵御高达12吨的负荷。这次周冠宇的赛车剧烈翻滚了数周,如果没有Halo结果不敢想象。 碳纤维单体壳车身也是如此,它的单体壳结构就像鸡蛋一样,能爆发出惊人的保护效果。2014年英国大奖赛,莱科宁以240km/h撞上墙壁,车手在撞击瞬间承受了超过40G的侧向加速度,事故后居然只是扭伤了脚踝。 大家可不要小看鸡蛋结构,它能承载比自身重量大得多的重量。曾在1989年,日本爱知县市民春日井市就采用了在汽车前轮各用34个鸡蛋,后轮各用52个鸡蛋的方法支承起了一辆大卡车。 而说它们有的材料技术新颖,是因为都采用了极强的材料。 Halo是基于钛合金材料制造。钛是20世纪50年代发展起来的一种重要的结构金属,钛合金的比强度(强度/密度)远大于其他金属结构材料。Halo重量仅7kg,却能提供12吨的负荷,非常适合重量和强度双双追求极致的赛车领域。 碳纤维的优点也是如此,它的轴向强度高、密度低。在1981年,当迈凯伦MP4/1在使用这项技术并在英国大奖赛拿下胜利后,可是让同行红了眼。 这是因为在MP4/1问世前,工程师们大多以铝合金等等轻量金属来打造赛车车架,但显然无法像碳纤维一样实现高强度和轻量化的双向奔赴。 | Halo在民用车领域有没有应用的可能? F1自古有分享顶级科技给民用车的传统。同样是车身相关的安全技术,碳纤维单体壳车身就在帮助汽车变得更加轻盈强壮,比如阿斯顿·马丁Valkyrie AMR Pro、玛莎拉蒂的全新超跑MC20、迈凯伦塞纳等超跑,都对它青睐有加。 最近这几年,乘用车安全越来越被大家重视,以前不在意的防翻滚问题也开始引起注意。为此,中保研还引入了车顶静压测试,来评价汽车翻滚后的安全水平。 Halo在预防翻滚上有这么好的效果,汽车有没有可能也使用呢? 如果就结构特点来看,其实敞篷跑车很早就在使用这项技术了,它还有一个学名:“T-Top车顶”。 T-Top车顶是封闭式和敞篷式的折中方案,它在车顶中间设计了一根纵梁,在与A柱的合作下,堪称上个世纪的“Halo”。 上世纪七十年代,这种设计被大量应用于量产跑车上,比如1975年的克莱斯勒Cordoba、1979年的道奇Magnum GT至今都让很多人津津乐道。 T-Top车顶在70~80年代的北美市场一度很火爆。为了致敬经典设计,在2020年,Genaddi设计公司还在2000款福特GT车型的基础上,将车顶改为了T-Top结构。 不过既然提到是“致敬”了,大家应该也猜到了它的处境。和几年前Halo的遭遇一样,T-Top车顶在新鲜劲过后,被很多人吐槽说不好看,并且因为乘用车的日常行驶车速没有赛车恐怖,翻车事故较少,加之这种结构普遍存在漏水问题,所以T-Top车顶在上世纪90年代后就逐渐消失了。 至于材料技术,现在汽车普遍更倾向于使用热成型硼钢作为A、B柱的加强材料,比如以安全闻名的沃尔沃,它的安全笼式车身就是在A、B、C柱上大量使用超高强度硼钢。 图注: 硼钢是以硼为主要合金元素,通过高温淬炼,具有强度高、耐磨性好、抗疲劳性能强等优势。 钛合金材料的问题在于,它的价格更高昂(钛合金加工成本很高),坊间就有这样一个段子,说布加迪一个钛合金的螺丝就高达50美元,所以现在看来,大量使用钛合金材料有困难。而且因为钛合金材料不好焊接,会影响生产效率、装配精度,这显然不适合汽车大批量生产的需求。相比之下,赛车和飞机这种不计成本,并且允许慢工出细活的就不需要顾虑这些。 | 总结 相信每一个喜爱赛车运动的朋友都会在这几天反复感谢Halo的帮助,是它拯救了一颗冉冉升起的新星。 至于颜值嘛,这东西见仁见智,要我看,我觉得挺帅气的,正如当年的T-Top车顶,放在现在也很洋气嘛。要我说,现在的敞篷车,特别是超跑级敞篷车,也可以适当考虑回归T-Top车顶,因为这种设计确实能提高安全。再说了,设计是循环,说不定像我这样中意它的人不少。 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com 七号-宋 点击下载 198 个回答,查看全部。 7 月 3 日 F1 英国大奖赛正赛,周冠宇开场与拉塞尔相撞出事故,目前身体状况如何? 7 月 3 日 F1 英国站正赛起步周冠宇遭遇严重撞车事故,目前身体状况如何?

  • 国际视野下中国企业债券违约的若干法律问题研究(一)

    知乎每日精选 · Tue, 05 Jul 2022 13:19:11 +0800

    俄乌站争与疫情封控等等种种因素叠加,中国资本市场也是暗流涌动。为吸引国际资本,2022年5月27日,中国人民银行、中国证监会、国家外汇管理局发布了联合公告〔2022〕第4号(关于进一步便利境外机构投资者投资中国债券市场有关事宜),自2022年6月30日起施行。这也是体现领导层提出的“中国开放的大门只会越开越大”。当然,除了加快完善债券基础设施、形成统一市场之外,债券相关的法律制度也需要接轨,而这方面,需要做的还有很多。因此应景地把发表过的一篇文章贴出来,英文版也已经发表在Capital Markets Law Journal. 国际视野下中国企业债券违约的若干法律问题研究(一) FU Wang 摘要:从2014年开始中国掀起了一波公司债券违约浪潮,这表明无风险的债券市场已经不复存在。全球范围内,债券违约中的法律问题无外乎三个主要方面,一是债券受托管理人的权责,二是违约事件和加速到期的确定,三是集体行动机制。本文重点考察了中国2020年债券违约法律框架的变化,涵盖了法律,法规,司法解释和市场文件等方面;并指出我国在借鉴了英美等发达市场经验的基础上,于上述三个核心问题都取得了进步、提升了与国际标准的兼容性,但对比之下,仍存在需要改进的不足之处。 关键词:债券违约 债券受托管理人 加速到期 集体行动条款 一、 中国债券违约与法律框架的升级 债券最初是为了资助战争而发明的,在接下来的几个世纪中,西方国家如英国对其进行了现代化改造,帮助政府融资用于各项支出。[1]如今,发行债券已成为为一个国家或企业筹集资金的最重要和最有效的方法之一。我国财政部从1981年开始发行债券,债券市场随着改革开放政策的发展也迅速扩大规模。截至2016年底,中国债券市场已成为仅次于美国的第二大债券市场。[2] 本文所指的“企业债券”是一个概括性用语,用于描述具有企业信用的实体发行的债券,不包括政府债券和金融债券。它主要包含以下几种类型的债券:[3] (1)企业债:由国家发展和改革委员会批准并在银行间市场和交易所市场交易,由中央国债登记结算有限责任公司登记结算;(2)公司债:中国证监会监管,仅在交易所债券市场交易;(3)银行间市场各类公司债券,例如短期融资券、中期票据、永续债券,定向债务融资工具、资产支持票据,项目收益票据,等等。这些债券发行与交易由中国人民银行主管的中国银行间市场交易商协会(以下简称“NAFMII”)监管,并由上海清算所登记结算。 中国债券市场曾经的低违约率助力了市场的蓬勃发展。在资本市场不断开放的背景下,外国投资者不断涌入我国债券市场。2016年2月,中国人民银行取消了外国机构投资者的配额限制,允许他们在银行间债券市场进行更多投资。[4] 许多国家的负利率也相应使得中国市场更有吸引力。比如2018年中国10年期国债的收益率为3.62%,企业债券的平均收益率为4.78%。[5] 截至2018年3月,外资在我国境内债券的持有量达到了13.6亿元人民币,同比增长超过60%。[6] 当然,在这个过程中,中国债券市场也受到外国投资者的批评,比如债券回购业务不发达以及债券期货交易缺乏对手方,导致债券缺乏流动性。[7] 不过,有一点是西方发达市场所不具备的,即投资者通常无需担心债券违约,从而享受着无风险回报。但这一不败神话,终于在2014年被打破。此后一波违约潮开始让债券违约处置机制成为投资者和法律界关注的焦点。 (一) 债券违约率不断上升引发关注 2014年3月4日,上海超日太阳能科技股份有限公司宣布无法向投资者支付债券利息,宣告了我国国内市场首次债券违约。[8] 通常情况下,发行人如果出现财务困难,当地政府往往会提供救助,俗称“刚性兑付”。这种作法扭曲了市场机制,并给投资者带来了幻想。但在经济下行和资金紧张的背景下,刚性兑付计划无法再覆盖所有陷入困境的发行人,于是违约率不断上升。统计数据显示,绝大多数国内市场债券违约是非国有企业的违约,按发行人的数量计算,占违约的86.7%,按本金计算,占90%。”[9] 此外,离岸违约也意外出现。国有企业青海省投资集团在香港发行了美元债券,但在2009年2月拖欠了1,090万美元的利息,这是20年来的首次离岸违约。[10] (资料来源:标普全球)。[11] 笔者认为,从积极的角度来看,债券违约对我国而言实际上是一件好事。与美国债券市场相比,我国的债券违约率仍然很低,比如2018年我国市场风险较高的高收益债券和所有企业债券的违约率分别为0.95%和0.33%,而美国高收益债券的违约率则高于2%。[12] 没有违约的市场无法正常运作,因为无风险的环境会造成错觉,让投资者无法有效地对风险定价与投资。违约潮使得投资者更加关注两个方面:债券信用评级和违约处置机制。我国评级机构评级相对宽松,因为80%的发行人一直被评为AA或更高等级,高于标普、穆迪等全球性机构的评级。[13] 至于违约处置机制的不完善也引发了投资者的报怨,相关报道显示债务回收比率从2016年的46%下降至2020年的13%。[14] (二) 债券违约处置的法律框架升级与实务难题 面对债券违约的浪潮和投资者的批评,2019年,我国修改了法律、法规以及市场文件,针对现有的债券违约法律框架进行了重要升级。搭建新框架的相关法律及文件于2019年年底左右出台,并于2020年生效。为说明这种变化,本文将债券违约法律框架以2020年作为分界点,概括为两个阶段:2020年之前框架和2020年新框架。 1. 2020年之前框架 交易所债券市场主要由《中华人民共和国证券法》所规范,但2019年该法修订之前,只有一个条款涉及债券违约,即禁止违约发行人发行新债券。中国证监会在其2015年颁布的《公司债券发行与交易管理办法》[15]中规定,发行人应当在债券募集说明书(以下简称“债券说明书”)中约定构成债券违约的情形、违约责任及其承担方式以及公司债券发生违约后的诉讼、仲裁或其他争议解决机制。发行人应当为债券持有人聘请债券受托管理人,并订立债券受托管理协议;在债券存续期限内,由债券受托管理人按照规定或协议的约定维护债券持有人的利益。债券受托管理人由本次发行的承销机构或其他经中国证监会认可的机构担任。同时还规定债券受托管理人负责召集债券持有人会议,在发行人不能偿还债务时可以接受全部或部分债券持有人的委托,以自己名义代表债券持有人提起民事诉讼、参与重组或者破产的法律程序。 银行间债券市场的主要规范性文件是中国人民银行2008年发布的《银行间债券市场非金融企业债务融资工具管理办法》[16],该办法搭建了发行框架,NAFMII则进一步完善了相关规则。比如颁布了《银行间债券市场非金融企业债务融资工具持有人会议规程》(2013年修订)》[17](以下简称“《2013年会议规程》”),旨在明确债券违约后的持有人会议机制,通过会议提出解决方案。 与证监会管辖的交易所市场相比,银行间市场并没有给债券受托管理人留有一席之地。如果发生违约,召集人应召集债券持有人会议通过决议以采取进一步行动,例如诉讼或重组。实践中,会议召集人通常是债券承销商。《2013年会议规程》还提出了除债券说明书另有约定外,会议决议标准为66%+75%,即会议生效需要三分之二以上表决权数额持有人出席,决议生效则需要出席会议的持有人所持表决权的四分之三以上通过。 至于与债券相关的司法诉讼,我国并没有特别的立法,所适用的法律规则与其他商事纠纷并无特别不同,比如《中华人民共和国民事诉讼法》和《中华人民共和国企业破产法》等等。这些法律中没有关于债券违约的特定规则,立法机关也并未预料到在2014年开始出现的这一波债券违约。 2. 框架陈旧带来的实务难题 债券违约引发了大量案件,不断对2020年之前的框架进行检验,从而发现了比较突出的三个法律问题。 第一个问题是谁应当在债券违约后的程序中起主导作用。这些程序包括持有人会议程序与针对发行人的司法程序。 在交易所市场中,出现违约之时,作为债券受托管理人的承销商并不愿意召开债券持有人会议,因为它本身可能成为债券持有人怨气发泄的目标。着急的债券持有人往往指责承销商在债券说明书中存在虚假陈述,以及未预料到发行人的违约。这一利益冲突有时会使得债券受托管理人的架构瘫痪,出现无人负责的局面。即使债券受托管理人希望启动诉讼程序要求发行人承担义务,民事诉讼规则也未明确允许它以自己的名义提起民事诉讼。 在银行间市场中,由于并未设置债券受托管理人,因此债券持有人必须独自提起诉讼。但根据我国的民事诉讼规则[18],在未明确约定管辖法院的情况下,“接收货币一方所在地为合同履行地”,成为管辖连接点,于是债券持有人往往在其住所地法院提起诉讼,导致同一笔债券违约的案件散布在我国各地,据测算到2019年底全国法院已受理400多起案件。[19]这些诉讼不仅增加了纠纷解决成本,而且不同法院针对同一批债券可能作出不同判决。可以说,缺乏一个主导者来代表债券持有人统一行事,造成了债券违约处置的拖延。比如,根据相关统计数据,截至2019年8月底,在300余笔违约债券中,只有53笔被成功处置。[20] 第二个问题与债券说明书约定的违约事件和加速到期相关。我国债券发行文件中约定的违约事件通常仅限于延迟支付本息和发行人破产。实务中,发行人延迟付款时,由于轮候查封制度的存在,较为心急的单个债券持有人为了抢首轮查封以保护其利益,往往立刻启动诉讼程序并申请冻结发行人资产。这样一来,反而会迫使发行人进入破产程序,降低了债券重组的可能性,使得发行人难以摆脱困境。除此之外,即便没有出现违约事件,有些恐慌的投资者还可能以其他理由主张债券加速到期,比如援引合同法“预期违约”制度或者主张债券说明书“存在虚假陈述”,甚至对一些永续债券也要求加速到期。 第三个问题是债券持有人如何通过协商实现集体行动。《2013年会议规程》在司法程序中也受到质疑,比如有的持有人会主张这些会议规程仅仅是合同条款而非法律法规。即便持有人会议通过一项决议,不满意的债券持有人也往往以会议规程系格式条款、未尽到提示说明义务、不公平等理由主张决议无效。除此之外,对于持有人会议召开的法定人数和决议通过条件,也存在不同观点。 3. 2020新框架 上述问题暴露出债券违约处置机制的内在缺陷,也引发了市场的呼声。为此,相应的法律文件陆续出台,逐步形成2020年新框架。对于交易所债券市场,《中华人民共和国证券法》于2019年进行了修订,并于2020年3月1日生效。该法律从更高层级上明确了债券受托管理人的地位,其中第92条规定:公开发行公司债券的,发行人应当为债券持有人聘请债券受托管理人,受托管理人应当由本次发行的承销机构或者其他经国务院证券监督管理机构认可的机构担任。债券发行人未能按期兑付债券本息的,债券受托管理人可以接受全部或者部分债券持有人的委托,以自己名义代表债券持有人提起、参加民事诉讼或者清算程序。 对于银行间市场的债券,NAMFII于2019年12月发布了《银行间债券市场非金融企业债务融资工具受托管理人业务指引(试行)》(以下简称“《管理人业务指引》”),并修改了会议规程(以下简称“《2019年会议规程》”),两项文件的生效日期均为2020年7月1日[21]。 《管理人业务指引》首次将债券受托管理人引入了银行间市场,可以被指定为债券受托管理人的机构包括“(一)已取得债务融资工具主承销商业务资质的金融机构;(二)持有金融许可证的金融资产管理公司;(三)已取得债务融资工具承销商业务资质的信托公司;(四)具备债务融资工具业务经验,最近1 年内为债务融资工具注册发行出具过法律意见书的律师事务所”,前提是它们已在NAFMII中备案。发行人必须通过签署受托管理协议来指定债券受托管理人。在获得全部或部分债券持有人的授权后,债券受托管理人可以积极参与违约相关事务。 《2019年会议规程》也带来了一些重大变化。首先,违约债券的承销商是会议的召集人,而债券受托管理人必须出席该会议。其次,决议对参会及未参会的债券持有人产生相同的影响和约束力,无论他们是否出席会议以及如何投票。第三,会议的法定人数和决议条件已修改。除法律法规另有规定或发行文件另有约定外,出席持有人会议的债务融资工具持有人所持有的表决权数额应超过本期债务融资工具总表决权数额的50%,会议方可生效。普通的决议应当由持有本期债务融资工具表决权超过总表决权数额50%的持有人同意后方可生效;针对特别议案的决议,则需要90%。特别议案的是导致债券等关键条款(如本金、利息、付款时间表、增信安排等)发生重大变化的议案。 与此同时,2019年12月,最高人民法院在与中国人民银行,中国证监会举行会议专门讨论债券违约问题,随后发布了会议纪要草案以征询公众意见。2020年7月15日,最高法院正式发布了《全国法院审理债券纠纷案件座谈会纪要》(以下简称“债券纪要”),总共34条,涉及债券违约的方方面面。比如,《债券纪要》解决了管辖权问题,明确普通债券违约由发行人住所地人民法院管辖。该纪要也明确承认债券受托管理人的作用,提出债券持有人会议通过的合法决议对所有债券持有人具有约束力,并规定了关于加速到期的一些裁判原则。 在笔者看来,通过建立2020年新框架,债券违约的处置机制得到了全面升级,尤其是在三个方面:债券发行架构,违约事件与加速到期,集体行动机制。这较大地弥补了目前市场的缺陷,为投资者注入了信心。在建立新框架的过程中,中国或多或少地借鉴了国际资本市场相关法律。在当前国际资本市场上,最盛行的准据法为普通法。许多国家的债券通常根据英国法律或纽约州法律发行。准据法与发行的交易所所在地关系并不大,大量选择英国法的欧元债券在卢森堡发行上市[22]。有学者研究了2006-2013年期间欧元区的主权债券发行,发现在金融危机期间,选择英国法或纽约法而不是发行人的国内法,有助于降低主权债务融资成本[23]。为此,笔者认为,新框架建立之后,我们仍应进一步研究与对比国外发达市场债券违约处置的普通法规则,以提高中国市场规则的兼容性。 二、 债券受托人的思考 债券发行涉及不同的中介机构,如经理行、承销商、受托管理人、财务代理人等,由此形成不同架构。对于普通法国家,债券受托管理人(bond trustee)是其债券市场的主要特征。比如,根据英国法律,发行人通常通过信托契据(Trust Deed)指定债券受托管理人的权利、义务,明确债券受托管理人服务于债券持有人的利益。 对于大陆法国家,由于信托制度不被承认或者不够发达,则转而采用财务代理人(fiscal agent)架构。财务代理人通过签定代理协议担任发行人的代理人,负责向债券持有人支付本息。与债券受托管理人不同,财务代理人不代表债券持有人利益,因此在这个架构之下,债券持有人自己必须对违约的发行人采取法律行动。 相比之下,债券受托管理人架构因更加灵活而受到欢迎。在这种信托结构中,受托人管理由债券付款本息及其他收益组成的信托财产,债券持有人则作为受益人,从实务操作角度而言较为便利:对于发行人而言,与代表众多债券持有人的受托管理人打交道将降低交易成本。受托管理人将行使其酌情处置权以应对诸如违约事件或者债券中其他可能触发违约的复杂条款,而不是动辄宣布违约并主张加速到期。如果债券需要担保,受托管理人可以直接将担保权登记于其名下,最大程度地减少了分别登记至债券持有人的麻烦。在发行人违约的情况下,受托管理人将在违约处置法律程序中起主导作用,而债券持有人通常无需采取任何行动,除非受托管理人应当作为而不作为。有学者曾评价:“如果没有受托人,则诉讼权属于债券持有人,债券持有人需要承担多重诉讼的风险,并且不听话的债券持有人会采取不适当的行动。”[24] 作为合同安排,受托管理人的权力由《信托契据》明确。例如,《欧洲中期债券信托契据》(Euro Medium Term Note(EMTN) Trust Deed)规定,受托管理人可以“在其酌情决定权下,不另行通知,采取它认为适合的针对发行人的程序和/或其他行动,以督促发行人履行在本债券及契据项下的义务”。[25] 该《信托契据》同时明确,该权力仅限于受托管理人行使,债券持有人无权行使。[26] 受托管理人在行使权力时具有“绝对自由裁量权”(absolute discretion),但受到“谨慎义务”(duty of care)的约束,这要求受托人“表现出谨慎和尽职”以避免“任何过失,违约,违反责任或违反信任”。[27]同时,为了制衡受托管理人此种权力,债券持有人可以通过“特别议案决议”(Extraordinary Resolution),迫使受托管理人对发行人采取法律程序,或罢免受托管理人。[28] 债券受托管理人架构在英国债券市场占主导地位,统计数据显示,2016年和2017年分别有88%和90%的英国债券发行人使用这种结构。[29]在其他普通法国家中,这种结构得到了广泛使用,甚至受到立法的强制要求。比如在美国,根据1939年《信托契据法》(Trust Indenture Act)的要求,在所有SEC注册的债券中,必须设置受托管理人。该法律不仅为受托管理人的角色和职责设定了标准,而且还规定了其报酬和补偿机制。除了普通法国家外,一些欧洲国家甚至伊拉克在主权债务发行中也采用了普通法为准据法,相应也设置了债券受托管理人结构。[30] (一) 中国债券受托管理人VS普通法债券受托管理人 债券受托管理人架构提供了一种处理债券违约的便捷方法,受托管理人在违约事务中起主导作用,避免债券持有人直接被拖入一场漫长复杂的司法程序中。我国借鉴了这一制度,在2020年新框架中正式将债券受托管理人的概念纳入证券法。但我国债券受托管理人,与普通法国家的债券受托管理人存在许多不同之处。因此,需要进一步辨析。[31] 首先,我国债券受托管理人确实可以代表债券持有人行事。但是,我国债券受托管理人是否属于《中华人民共和国信托法》(以下简称“《信托法》”)所规定的受托人,其实争议不少。该法第二条规定:本法所称信托,是指委托人基于对受托人的信任,将其财产权委托给受托人,由受托人按委托人的意愿以自己的名义,为受益人的利益或者特定目的,进行管理或者处分的行为。 对于中国的信托法,著名的英国金融法学者与律师Philip Wood曾评价到:“中国于2001年颁布了一部信托法,这可能是过去25年世界法律中最重要的法律事件之一”。[32] 在普通法概念下,信托涉及到信托财产的转移,由受托人持有资产。但我国信托法在立法时有意淡化了财产所有权转移的特征,因为担心普通百姓会担心失去对财产的控制权,从而抵制立法。[33] 于是立法使用了“委托给”这样模糊的词语而不是“转移给”,容易在实务中造成混乱。市场上涉及有形资产作为信托财产时,更是自行创设出各种“财产收益权”以回避所有权转移的问题以及因此引发的税赋。我国债券在存托清算系统中是直接登记在债券持有人名下的,债券受托管理人并未持有信托财产,如果直接界定为信托法下的管理人会受到较大争议。 其次,我国《信托法》第11条明确规定的信托无效情形之一是“专以诉讼或者讨债为目的设立信托”。如果严格解释这一法律条文,则债券受托管理人不应被视为《信托法》规定的受托人,因为该债券受托管理人的主要义务在于代表债券持有人提起司法程序要求发行人或者担保人偿还债券本息,即“诉讼”加“讨债”。 第三,在英国债券受托管理人架构下,并不允许债券持有人直接对发行人提起诉讼,仅有受托管理人具有这种​​权力。在Elektrim SA v Vivendi Holdings 1 Corp [2008] EWCA Civ 1178中,债券持有人Vivendi在佛罗里达州提起一个法律诉讼中,主张发行人Elektrim公司存在欺诈行为,并声称受托管理人Law Debenture Trust Corporation Plc违反了其信托义务。发行人则起诉到英国高等法院(England and Wales High Court)申请要求反诉讼禁令,禁止Vivendi提起该法律诉讼。英国高等法院同意了发行人的申请并颁布了反诉讼禁令,Elektrim公司不服提起上诉,但被英国上诉法院(England and Wales Court of Appeal)驳回。在裁判文书中,Collins法官写到: “受托管理人制度的目的是确保所有债券持有人都通过受托管理人行事。这确保了债券持有人之间没有竞争,在投资回报中享有平等的份额。在全部债券持有人受到损失时,如果允许单个债券持有人自主提出索赔,则会引发受托管理人和单个债券持有人的多重诉讼或重复诉讼”。“信托契据第10.2条中的“强制履行”(enforce performance of)债券一词并不限于主张特定履行(specific performance),必须至少扩大到对不偿还债券本息所造成损失的各类索赔。该用语应包括任何旨在维护债券持有人权利的主张(笔者注:即不仅是合同诉讼,还包括以欺诈为由的侵权诉讼)。[34] 可以说,通过受托管理人主张权利是英国法项下该架构的本质特征。但我国债券受托管理人并没有相应的独立自主权,发生违约时,它必须先获得所有或部分债券持有人的授权,然后再采取任何法律行动。从这个意思上来说,更象是代理律师。 第四,债券受托管理人的任职资格和利益冲突规定有所不同。英国债券市场中,尽管对债券受托管理人没有法定的门槛,但通常的做法是,由获得授权的信托公司来充当受托管理人。此类提供公司信托服务的信托公司必须在英国或欧盟成立,并在英国设有营业地,最低股本为25万英镑,其中超过10万英镑必须以现金支付。[35]在美国,债券的受托管理人必须是获得美国SEC许可的机构,且资本和盈余不少于150,000美元。更重要的是,为了避免利益冲突,受托管理人不能是债券的承销商,也不得直接或间接地由承销商控制。[36] 在我国2020年新框架中,并没有提到债券受托管理人的资本门槛。但这并不重要,从实务角度看,即使适用英国或美国的同等资本要求,这些候选机构(主承销商、金融资产管理公司、信托公司、律师事务所)很轻松就能越过这个门槛。但我国2020年新框架似乎忽略了利益冲突,直接允许债券承销商成为债券受托管理人的第一层次候选人,在笔者看来这并不妥当。在我国债券市场中,债券发行中的其他功能(如存托和清算)由中央结算公司或上海清算所等法定存管机构执行,债券承销商主要职责之一是准备债券说明书。许多承销商是大型银行或证券公司。当违约发生时,债券投资者更愿意从这些财大气粗的中介机构中挽回损失,而并不寄过多希望于那些已经陷入困境中的发行人。国际市场亦是如此,持有人往往主张债券说明书中存在虚假陈述甚至欺诈,将承销商诉至法院。例如,在美国1976年的Escott v. BarChris Construction Corporation案中,地区法官Mclean就明确了这种因果关系: “承销商说,债券说明书是发行人公司的说明书,而不是承销商的说明书。毫无疑问,这是他们习惯地对待它的方式。但是美国证券法没有承认这种区别。如果债券说明书虚假,承销商与发行人同样要负责,因为潜在的投资者在确定是否购买证券时信赖了承销商的声誉。” [37] 我国的投资者已经依葫芦画瓢,比如投资者已经将无法偿还的五洋建设债券的承销商德邦证券有限公司于2019年5月诉至浙江杭州中级法院,成为追究债券承销商责任的首例案件。[38]因此,如果忽视这种利益冲突,笔者认为可能会使承销商无法发挥其作为债券受托管理人的作用。 (二) 改进我国债券受托管理人的建议 债券受托管理人架构作为普通法债券市场的基石,目的在于代表债券持有人的不同利益,以便实现快速集体行动的目标。但我国债券受托管理人的设计能否实现这一目的还有待观察。由于种种原因,债券受托管理人更像是诉讼代理人,而不像《信托法》中的受托人。前者需要债券持有人的授权才能采取行动,而后者则可以依照信托文件自主享有酌处权。律师事务所作为债券受托管理人的候选机构之一,从另一方面可以印证这一观点。我国引入债券受托管理人,比以往有较大进步,因为管理人要起到主导作用,提升了债券违约后的响应能力,较好地解决了一些程序性问题,但是不足之处在于当债券受托管理人试图处理违约时,缺乏酌处权可能会阻止它采取明智的行动,而利益冲突可能会阻止它迅速采取行动。此外,受托管理人还可能不得不与那些急于查封资产的“独狼”型债券持有人竞争。 笔者认为,债券市场瞬息万变,法律亦需不断发展升级,这样才能增强投资者的信心。我国已迈出了第一步,放弃了一种不太适应的财务代理人结构,应该考虑更进一步,对《信托法》进行修订,以适应债券市场的需求。毕竟,《信托法》颁布之时,还不存在债券违约。比如对于信托财产的界定,随着信托的观念慢慢被社会接收,以前的担心已经显得过时,不如及时明确概念。法律也是不断变化以适应市场的,即使在普通法管辖区,也有学者注意到债券信托也与正常的信托有所区别,因为信托财产是间接的(circular)。在新西兰,立法者甚至试图用“监督人”(supervisor)代替“受托人”(trustee)一词,以便将债券受托管理人与其他受托人区分开。[39] 当然,名称是什么并不是最重要的,最重要的是债券受托管理人的权力和职责。因此我们可以加以改进兼容国际标准,以使得我们的市场对外国投资者更加有吸引力。 (未完待续) [1] Stephen G Cecchetti and Kermit L Schoenholtz, Money, Banking, and Financial Markets (Fifth Edition, McGraw-Hill Education 2017) ,第134页。 [2] Grace Xing Hu, Jun Pan and Jiang Wang, ‘Chinese Capital Market: An Empirical Overview’ [2017] SSRN Electronic Journal <https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=3095056> 访问时间 2020年6月10日。 [3] Chi Zhang, ‘The Segmented Regulatory System of the Bond Markets in China: Current Situation, Causes and Reform’ (2020年) 15 Capital Markets Law Journal 175。 [4] 中国人民银行公告〔2016〕第3号。 [5] James Kynge, ‘Default Risk Casts Shadow over Foreign Demand for China Bonds’ Financial Times (2018年6月27日) <https://www.ft.com/content/3ecb0f98-7a12-11e8-8e67-1e1a0846c475> 访问时间2020年6月6日。 [6] 同上注。 [7] Daniela Gabor, ‘China Should Not Remake Its Bond Markets in US Image’ Financial Times (2019年6月13日) <https://www.ft.com/content/892aeeb8-8d31-11e9-b8cb-26a9caa9d67b> 访问时间 2020年6月6日。 [8] Jamil Anderlini, ‘China Suffers First Corporate Bond Default’ Financial Times (7 March 2014) <https://www.ft.com/content/d4ccd956-a5cb-11e3-9818-00144feab7de> 访问时间 2020年6月6日。 [9] Edward White, ‘Chinese Corporate Bond Defaults Hit Record High, Fitch Says’ Financial Times (2019年1月21日) <https://www.ft.com/content/0bf4a6e8-1d31-11e9-b126-46fc3ad87c65> 访问时间 2020年6月6日。 [10] Don Weinland, ‘China Local Governments Sound Alarm on Debt Obligations’ Financial Times (2019年9月5日) <https://www.ft.com/content/5093658a-ced1-11e9-b018-ca4456540ea6> 访问时间 2020年6月6日。 [11] Umesh Desai, ‘Record Bond Defaults as China Lifts Credit Allocation’ Asia Times (2020年1月7日) <https://asiatimes.com/2020年/01/record-bond-defaults-as-china-lifts-credit-allocation/> 访问时间 2020年6月9日。 [12] McCabe Adam, ‘Why China’s Bond Defaults Are Actually a Good Thing’ Financial Times (2018年12月19日) <https://www.ft.com/content/da80aa2a-03a5-11e9-9d01-cd4d49afbbe3> 访问时间 2020年6月6日。 [13] Hudson Lockett and Yizhen Jia, ‘China’s Bond Market Is Opening — but Are the Rating Agencies Ready?’ Financial Times (2019年4月4日) <https://www.ft.com/content/e6ea3c7c-55f8-11e9-91f9-b6515a54c5b1> 访问时间 2020年6月6日。 [14] Sun Yu, ‘China Bond Investors Battle to Claim Cash after Defaults’ Financial Times (2020年1月9日) <https://www.ft.com/content/09dda1e4-31e8-11ea-9703-eea0cae3f0de> 访问时间 2020年6月9日。 [15] 中国证券监督管理委员会令第113号。 [16] 中国人民银行令(〔2008〕第1号)。 [17] 中国银行间市场交易商协会公告[2013]12号。 [18] 参见《最高人民法院关于适用〈中华人民共和国民事诉讼法〉的解释》第18条。 [19] Qinqin Peng, ‘In Depth: China Responds to Default Wave With New Legal Frameworks’ Caixin (2019年12月30日) <https://www.caixinglobal.com/2019-12-30/in-depth-china-responds-to-default-wave-with-new-legal-frameworks-101499147.html> 访问时间 2020年6月15日。 [20] 同上 [21] 中国银行间市场交易商协会公告[2019]25号。 [22] Patrick BG van der Wansem, Lars Jessen and Diego Rivetti, ‘Issuing International Bonds:A Guidance Note’ [2019] MTI Global Practice <http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/491301554821864140/pdf/Issuing-International-Bonds-A-Guidance-Note.pdf>2020年9月28日访问。 [23] Foreign-Law Bonds: Can They Reduce Sovereign Borrowing Costs? (Publications Office 2018) <https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2866/789348> 2020年9月28日访问。 [24] Andrew Haynes, Law Relating to International Banking (Bloomsbury Professional 2018) 128页. [25] ‘EMTN Trust Deed’ (Practical Law) <http://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/0-201-8282?comp=pluk&transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)&firstPage=true&bhcp=1&OWSessionId=NA&skipAnonymous=true> 访问时间 2020年6月15日, 第10.1条。 [26] 同上注第11.2条。 [27] 同上注第15.1和15.17条。 [28] 同上注第11.1和21.2条。 [29] ICMA-NAFMII Working Group, ‘International Practices of Bond Trustee Arrangements’ <https://www.icmagroup.org/assets/documents/About-ICMA/APAC/ICMA-NAFMII-WG-International-Practices-of-Bond-Trustee-Arrangements-031218.pdf>. [30] 同上 [31] 在中国法律当中,叫管理人的还存在其他概念,比如破产管理人。 [32] Philip Wood ‘Commercial Notions and Equitable Potions’ in Sarah Worthington (ed), Commercial Law and Commercial Practice (Hart 2003). [33] 江平口述,陈夏红整理:《沉浮与枯荣:八十自述》,法律出版社2010年9月第1版,415页。 [34]Elektrim SA v Vivendi Holdings 1 Corp [2008] EWCA Civ 1178,第91,92段。 [35] Trustee Act 1925 s. 68, Public Trustee Act 1906, The Public Trustee (Custodian Trustee) Rules 1975. [36] Trust Indenture Act of 1939, s. 310. [37] 283 F. Supp. 643 (S.D.N.Y. 1976). [38] 朱琳娜:全国首例公司债券欺诈发行民事赔偿案开庭',《上海证券报》(2019年5月16日)报道。http://stock.cnstock.com/stock/smk_zq/201905/4375881.htm.访问时间2020年6月20日。 [39] Benjamin Liu, ‘The Contractual Nature of Bond Trusts and Security Trusts’ (2017) 8 Journal of Business Law 680-697. 来源:知乎 www.zhihu.com FU Wang 点击下载

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    The Queen leads the tributes for England on winning Euro 2022 after their 2-1 extra-time win over Germany.

  • In pictures: Fans celebrate historic England win

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 19:01:04 GMT

    Trafalgar Square roared with celebrations as England's lionesses claim an historic win.

  • Euro 2022: England's Beth Mead named tournament's best player after winning Golden Boot

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 20:48:40 GMT

    England forward Beth Mead is named the player of the tournament at Euro 2022 after winning the Golden Boot as top scorer.

  • Euro 2022 final: Match-winner Chloe Kelly says England in dreamland after beating Germany 2-1

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 21:47:44 GMT

    England match-winner Chloe Kelly says "this is what dreams are made of" after the Lionesses defeat Germany in the Euro 2022 final to win a first major trophy.

  • England v Germany - how the players rated in Euro 2022 final

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 16:49:40 GMT

    See how the players rated as England beat Germany 2-1 after extra time to win Euro 2022.

  • Euro 2022: 'Unreal scenes!' - Chloe Kelly gives England lead in extra time

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 18:34:29 GMT

    Chloe Kelly pokes in at the second time of asking to provide England with a late advantage over Germany in the Euro 2022 final at Wembley.

  • Women's Euro 2022: England and Germany fans arrive in Wembley

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 15:35:54 GMT

    England are one win away from their first major trophy, while Germany are eight-time champions.

  • The Papers: 'No more years of hurt' as 'Lionesses bring it home'

    BBC Top Stories · Mon, 01 Aug 2022 04:17:02 GMT

    England's historic Euro 2022 win against Germany at Wembley dominates Monday's front pages.

  • Euro 2022: Fans react to England's historic win, as it happened

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 19:44:02 GMT

    England's Lionesses beat Germany 2-1 at Euro 2022, bagging their first major trophy.

  • Euro 2022 highlights: England 2-1 Germany

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 18:46:59 GMT

    Chloe Kelly's goal in extra time gives England a 2-1 victory over Germany in the final of European Women's Championship.

  • Love Island: 'I'm very proud of Tasha'

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 23:01:13 GMT

    Love Island contestant, Tasha Ghouri, was born deaf and relies on a cochlear implant to hear. Her dad speaks to the BBC about the challenges she faces.

  • Banksy: The stories behind his 'Great British Spraycation'

    BBC Top Stories · Mon, 01 Aug 2022 01:32:45 GMT

    How have the 10 pieces created by the elusive street artist stood the test of time - one year on?

  • 'I adopt wobbly cats'

    BBC Top Stories · Sat, 30 Jul 2022 23:00:03 GMT

    A woman who adopts disabled cats wants more people to consider adopting.

  • Your pictures on the theme of 'barriers'

    BBC Top Stories · Sat, 30 Jul 2022 23:37:05 GMT

    A selection of striking images from our readers around the world.

  • Love Island's Amber Gill: 'Writing sex scenes is a little awkward'

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 01:29:42 GMT

    Love Island star turned novelist Amber Gill tells BBC Newsbeat why diversity in books is important.

  • Camp Bestival 2022: Dancers beat world disco record

    BBC Top Stories · Sat, 30 Jul 2022 15:36:12 GMT

    Sophie Ellis-Bextor leads almost 600 dancers as they boogie their way into the record books.

  • Shauna Lennon: From wheelchair to walking on stage at graduation

    BBC Top Stories · Sat, 30 Jul 2022 05:42:51 GMT

    University student Shauna Lennon from County Tyrone was involved a serious car accident last year.

  • Beloved Somerset milkman Steve Davis given retirement send-off

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 10:05:33 GMT

    Steve Davis' family has been delivering milk in Milborne Port, Somerset, for more than 100 years.

  • Cost of living: Are you missing out on unclaimed universal credit?

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 23:05:26 GMT

    Benefits are a gateway to support but some estimates suggest £15bn still goes unclaimed each year.

  • Reality of Ukraine war hidden from Fortress Russia

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 23:00:14 GMT

    In the medieval town of Pskov, many are happy to believe the Kremlin's false portrayal of the war.

  • Trade unions: What are they and who is allowed to strike?

    BBC Top Stories · Mon, 01 Aug 2022 01:33:53 GMT

    What are the rules on striking and do you have to be a trade union member to take part?

  • Starlink: Why is Elon Musk launching thousands of satellites?

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 23:07:26 GMT

    The billionaire's SpaceX company hopes to provide an internet service from space.

  • The space tech helping to tackle deforestation

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 23:00:51 GMT

    How the International Space Station is helping to tackle deforestation

  • Afghanistan: How one TV presenter became a refugee

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 23:46:51 GMT

    A year since leaving Kabul, a young refugee is trying to rebuild a new life in UK

  • ‘I lost £40,000 worth of crops in a field fire’

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 01:13:16 GMT

    People are being urged to take extra care to avoid causing fires in the countryside during hot weather.

  • Is the UK heading for a drought and will there be a hosepipe ban?

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 01:30:39 GMT

    July saw temperature records broken multiple times and rainfall is down 76%.

  • Biggin Hill: 'Mum was embarrassed about her WW2 medal'

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 01:34:36 GMT

    Elspeth Henderson had mixed feelings about her award for her work during the Battle of Britain. Why?

  • Flesh-eating bug: Swansea DJ tells how graze almost killed him

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 06:10:59 GMT

    Scott Neil couldn't believe how he got potentially fatal disease after a trip while walking home.

  • Lucy Porter: TikTok won't kill stand-up comedy but petrol prices and train fares will

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 01:31:46 GMT

    The comedian says if she was starting out now, she would struggle to afford travel and rent.

  • Kansas: The state where abortion is on the ballot

    BBC Top Stories · Sat, 30 Jul 2022 23:02:34 GMT

    Opposing sides are in a close race to decide whether women in Kansas have the right to abortion.

  • The Ukrainians living on a cruise ship in Edinburgh

    BBC Top Stories · Sat, 30 Jul 2022 08:54:05 GMT

    More than 100 Ukraine refugees are being temporarily housed on the MS Victoria.

  • 'Witness protection threw my life into turmoil'

    BBC Top Stories · Sat, 30 Jul 2022 08:47:55 GMT

    Reece was 11 when his mother was a witness in a murder investigation, which led to years of turmoil.

  • England v South Africa: Coach Matthew Mott says series defeat is a 'line in the sand' for hosts

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 18:56:43 GMT

    England's Twenty20 series loss to South Africa is a "line in the sand moment for the team" before October's World Cup, says head coach Matthew Mott.

  • Commonwealth Games: England cyclist Matt Walls and spectators injured in horrifying crash

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 20:41:10 GMT

    England cyclist Matt Walls is released from hospital after a terrifying crash in which both he and his bike flew into the crowd.

  • Commonwealth Games 2022: Adam Peaty beaten as James Wilby claims gold in men’s 100m breaststroke

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 20:56:51 GMT

    Watch as Adam Peaty comes fourth in men's 100m breaststroke for his first defeat in the event since 2015 as England team-mate James Wilby claims gold at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

  • Commonwealth Games 2022: Onlooker lives every moment of women's weightlifting

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 18:01:06 GMT

    Watch as a passionate onlooker lives every moment of the women's weightlifting at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

  • Euro 2022 final: Women's football will never be the same again

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 21:25:59 GMT

    After years of misery following England's football teams, the Lionesses finally gave the nation the trophy it craved.

  • England win Euro 2022: Lionesses fans revel in final victory over Germany

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 21:29:56 GMT

    Fans have been reacting to England's historic Euro 2022 win. Here are some of the best tweets and comments.

  • Day-by-day guide & schedule

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 22:34:54 GMT

    Your day-by-day guide to all the action at the 22nd Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

  • Commonwealth Games 2022: Who are the home nation athletes to watch at Birmingham 2022?

    BBC Top Stories · Tue, 26 Jul 2022 16:00:20 GMT

    BBC Sport highlights the key athletes to watch at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games from across the home nations.

  • Commonwealth Games 2022: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Gretel Bueta, Samu Kerevi among stars to watch

    BBC Top Stories · Sat, 23 Jul 2022 08:44:18 GMT

    Olympic medals, world titles, social media millions and a hill named in their honour. Meet some of the world superstars descending on Birmingham for the Commonwealth Games.

  • Commonwealth Games: Jake Jarman wins all-around gold, Ondine Achampong takes silver in women's event

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 16:56:26 GMT

    Jake Jarman beats fellow Englishman James Hall to win gold in the Commonwealth Games men's all-around gymnastics.

  • Commonwealth Games: England weightlifter Fraer Morrow's shock at bronze medal

    BBC Top Stories · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 08:34:28 GMT

    England's Fraer Morrow said she did not immediately realise she had won a medal after taking bronze in the Commonwealth Games women's 55kg weightlifting.

  • Commonwealth Games: Duncan Scott beats Tom Dean to freestyle gold after Ben Proud wins butterfly gold

    BBC Top Stories · Sat, 30 Jul 2022 21:15:46 GMT

    Scotland's Duncan Scott passes England's Tom Dean to take a sensational 200m freestyle Commonwealth gold.

  • Nancy Pelosi Headed to Singapore, Silent on Taiwan

    New York Times · Mon, 01 Aug 2022 03:55:06 +0000

    President Biden’s aides said she was expected to proceed with a plan to visit Taiwan, the prospect of which has jangled nerves in both Beijing and Washington.

  • Why Pelosi’s Proposed Taiwan Visit Is Raising U.S.-China Tensions

    New York Times · Sat, 30 Jul 2022 19:53:47 +0000

    Beijing has issued strongly worded warnings implying that China might use military force if Nancy Pelosi moves forward with a planned trip to Taiwan.

  • Using Nuclear Reactors for Cover, Russians Lob Rockets at Ukrainians

    New York Times · Mon, 01 Aug 2022 04:31:13 +0000

    Russia has turned Europe’s largest nuclear power plant into a fortress, stymying Ukraine’s forces and unnerving locals who fear both shelling and a radiation leak.

  • As Ukraine Orders Civilians to Evacuate the East, Residents Face a Grim Choice

    New York Times · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 20:42:32 +0000

    The president’s announcement is the broadest government directive issued thus far in the war, coming after months of relentless Russian bombardment.

  • After Uvalde, a Kindergarten Teacher Trains to Carry a Gun In School

    New York Times · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 07:00:18 +0000

    More school employees are carrying guns to defend against school shootings. In Ohio, a contentious new law requires no more than 24 hours of training.

  • Bill Russell, Celtics Center Who Transformed Pro Basketball, Dies at 88

    New York Times · Mon, 01 Aug 2022 02:20:50 +0000

    A Hall of Famer who led the Celtics to 11 championships, he was “the single most devastating force in the history of the game,” his coach Red Auerbach said.

  • Bill Russell Paved the Way for Black Coaches to Defy Doubters

    New York Times · Mon, 01 Aug 2022 00:28:29 +0000

    When getting hired as a Black coach seemed “far-fetched,” as one coach said, Russell showed that it could be done — and that it could lead to championships.

  • Among Pro Athletes, Bill Russell Was a Pioneering Activist

    New York Times · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 23:31:07 +0000

    Russell marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., spoke out against segregation in Boston public schools and backed Muhammad Ali in his opposition to the Vietnam War.

  • Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and Others React to Bill Russell’s Legacy

    New York Times · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 23:11:00 +0000

    Magic Johnson said the Celtics great was his idol. Michael Jordan called him a pioneer. Jaylen Brown called him one of the greatest athletes ever.

  • Gen Z Knows What It Wants From Employers. And Employers Want Them.

    New York Times · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 09:00:13 +0000

    To tap into the creativity of younger workers, and to offset a labor shortage, companies are offering four-day weeks, club memberships and work-from-anywhere flexibility.

  • McKinney Fire Burns 51,000 Acres in California

    New York Times · Mon, 01 Aug 2022 03:48:53 +0000

    The fire sent a huge cloud called a pyrocumulonimbus 39,000 feet into the air. Storm winds, high temperatures and drought conditions helped it grow over the weekend, officials said.

  • Lies for Profit: Can Sandy Hook Parents Shut Alex Jones Down?

    New York Times · Mon, 01 Aug 2022 02:34:50 +0000

    A hefty financial verdict this week could dissuade other politically driven liars. But the path forward is uncertain, and the legal battles take a toll.

  • A Town’s Housing Crisis Exposes a ‘House of Cards’

    New York Times · Mon, 01 Aug 2022 02:17:29 +0000

    In the Idaho resort area of Sun Valley, there are so few housing options that many workers are resorting to garages, campers and tents.

  • Nichelle Nichols, Lieutenant Uhura on ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 89

    New York Times · Mon, 01 Aug 2022 00:53:16 +0000

    She was among the first Black women to have a leading role in a TV series. She later worked with NASA to recruit minorities for the space program.

  • For Korean Adoptee Chefs, Food as Identity Is Complicated

    New York Times · Mon, 01 Aug 2022 00:55:28 +0000

    Raised in the U.S., they’re exploring a heritage they didn’t grow up with through restaurant cooking — and finding both fulfillment and criticism.

  • Investing in Real Estate as Self-Care

    New York Times · Fri, 29 Jul 2022 18:55:32 +0000

    Many women seeking independence after a breakup or divorce have discovered emotional empowerment and even healing in real estate investment.

  • Eric Greitens May Just Get What He Deserves

    New York Times · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 14:26:27 +0000

    At some point, toeing the line can’t excuse sketchy, creepy, violent and possibly illegal behavior.

  • In the I.C.U., Dying Sometimes Feels Like a Choice

    New York Times · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 10:00:03 +0000

    The complex nature of death when machines keep us alive.

  • We Are Living in Richard Nixon’s America. Escaping It Won’t Be Easy.

    New York Times · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 14:25:59 +0000

    Remember when there was talk of Joe Biden as a transformational figure?

  • Leave My Disability Out of Your Anti-Abortion Propaganda

    New York Times · Mon, 01 Aug 2022 02:16:48 +0000

    The dignity of disabled lives and a woman’s right to choose are two separate issues.

  • You Want to Clean Up the House? Same Here

    New York Times · Sat, 30 Jul 2022 20:13:06 +0000

    How to improve the House of Representatives.

  • Can We Resist the Age of the Algorithm?

    New York Times · Sat, 30 Jul 2022 19:00:05 +0000

    To resist, our culture needs less Netflix and more Miranda Priestly.

  • Monkeypox Is About to Become the Next Public Health Failure

    New York Times · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 19:45:01 +0000

    The outbreak doesn’t bode well for America’s response to future pathogens.

  • The Sunday Read: ‘Inside the Push to Diversify the Book Business’

    New York Times · Sun, 31 Jul 2022 16:37:15 +0000

    For generations, America’s major publishers focused almost entirely on white readers. Now a new cadre of executives like Lisa Lucas is trying to open up the industry.

  • Tomato Mode

    New York Times · Fri, 29 Jul 2022 17:20:03 +0000

    Fresh summer tomatoes lend themselves beautifully to some exceptional no-cook and low-cook meals.

  • Is America Stuck in a Gerontocracy?

    New York Times · Wed, 27 Jul 2022 11:58:21 +0000

    Michelle Cottle and David Brooks on what we really mean when we talk about age in politics.

  • What’s the Most Unusual Place You Have Ever Gone on a Date?

    New York Times · Wed, 20 Jul 2022 03:28:25 +0000

    Share your story with the Modern Love Podcast, and you may be featured in a future episode.

  • Tensions Flare on Kosovo-Serbian Border Amid Protests and Gunfire

    New York Times · Mon, 01 Aug 2022 00:23:37 +0000

    Demonstrations against a law related to new license plates for ethnic Serbs in Kosovo led to gunfire on Sunday, leading to concerns that the violence could escalate further.

  • What We Know About the Victims in the Kentucky Flooding

    New York Times · Mon, 01 Aug 2022 00:38:53 +0000

    As officials braced for the death toll to climb, family members shared memories of those lost.

  • As India Bans Disposable Plastic, Tamil Nadu Offers Lessons

    New York Times · Mon, 01 Aug 2022 03:01:39 +0000

    Tamil Nadu’s ban on single-use plastic has gotten results, thanks to relentless policing. Now, India says it will tackle the problem nationwide.

  • Four Fitness Facts to Fuel Your Workout

    New York Times · Fri, 29 Jul 2022 00:00:05 +0000

    Things to keep in mind for when you’re low on motivation.

  • Omicron BA.5 Surge: 5 Ways to Stay Safe

    New York Times · Tue, 26 Jul 2022 15:26:43 +0000

    The BA.5 surge is a reminder that we need to take precautions to avoid illness, slow the relentless cycle of new variants and minimize the disruption to our daily lives.

  • Night Sweats Causes: Experts Explain Why You Sweat In Your Sleep

    New York Times · Fri, 29 Jul 2022 22:13:29 +0000

    There are many possible reasons you might wake up in a pool of perspiration. Here’s how to tell when it should be cause for concern.

  • Dear Parents: Your Child With Autism Is Perfect

    New York Times · Fri, 03 Jul 2020 18:34:51 +0000

    Children with autism express themselves truthfully regardless of the social consequences. I know, because I am autistic.

  • How You Can Use Anticipation to Enjoy Life More

    New York Times · Tue, 07 Jun 2022 21:31:54 +0000

    Looking forward to something can be almost as good as experiencing it.

  • Not Just Any Bag

    New York Times · Sat, 30 Jul 2022 09:00:27 +0000

    A New York company, Anybag, finds an elegant way to turn plastic bag waste into a functional tote. Miranda Kerr, Adidas and Ralph Lauren are fans.

  • Live Activities now available in beta

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 27 Jul 2022 10:20:47 PDT

    Live Activities help people stay on top of what’s happening in your app in real time, right from the Lock Screen. You can now get started with Live Activities and the new ActivityKit framework, which are available in the beta 4 version of iOS 16. Please note that Live Activities and ActivityKit won’t be included in the initial public release of iOS 16. Later this year, they'll be publicly available in an update and you’ll be able to submit your apps with Live Activities to the App Store. Learn more about Live Activities and ActivityKit

  • Meet with App Store experts

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 26 Jul 2022 08:00:47 PDT

    Get ready to connect with experts online to learn how to make the most of App Store features. Discover how to attract new customers, test marketing strategies, add subscriptions, and so much more. Live presentations with Q&A will be held throughout August in multiple time zones and languages. Register today if you’re a member of the Apple Developer Program. Learn more View schedule

  • Behind the Design: Wylde Flowers

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 25 Jul 2022 09:00:48 PDT

    Lots of games defy easy explanation, but Wylde Flowers is a particularly rare bloom. This charming Apple Design Award-winning game is a cross-pollination of farming simulation, eerie mystery, optional love story, and exploration of tolerance and understanding. Also, you’re a witch who sometimes turns into a cat. “The Wylde Flowers experience is a bit different for everybody,” says Amanda Schofield, the co-founder, creative director and managing director of indie developer Studio Drydock. “It’s all about self-expression and self-exploration.” And as the game elegantly shifts from cozy sim to curious mystery — and introduces a gratifyingly diverse cast of characters — that experience transforms, too. Tara begins life in Fairhaven as a mild-mannered farmer, but there’s more to the town than meets the eye. Wylde Flowers is set in the idyllic town of Fairhaven, a pastoral little hamlet where everyone knows everyone (for reasons the game turns into a winking challenge) and the most urgent menace appears to be the rotting boards blocking the entrance to an old mine. Fairhaven — and Schofield — make your welcome as comfortable as an old cardigan. You play as Tara, a young woman who’s fled the city after a tough breakup to recharge and reconnect with her Grandma Hazel — who keeps secrets of her own but whose love for Tara radiates from the first cutscene. “The first thing we do is literally wrap you in a warm hug from Grandma,” says Schofield. “That’s the personality of the game. We’re saying this is a safe space, where things are they way they should be. I think that’s quite needed at the moment.” Once in town, however, who Tara is — and what she becomes — is entirely up to you. Your in-game decisions shape the direction of her friendships, possible love life, and farming skills. Serendipitous interactions move the story along; bump into the gregarious bartender Damon or the flirty doctor Amira at the right moment, and you might change your plans (or unlock a special cutscene or quest). In that early conversation with Grandma, you even decide who Tara broke up with. Fairhaven’s cast includes the friendly merchant Kai, the kindly Grandma Hazel, and the guarded Kim. Such inclusivity is certainly intentional; townsfolk like the non-binary butcher Kim and the married couple Angus and Francis play key roles in the story and date back to the game’s earliest prototypes. Yet at the same time, Wylde Flowers isn’t a game that strives to make its points. “The LGBTQ+ characters aren’t defined by their queerness,” says Studio Drydock marketing lead Victoria Kershaw. “It’s a part of who they are, but it’s not their story arc. In Fairhaven, everyone is accepted as human beings.” In that way, Fairhaven mirrors the ethos of Studio Drydock itself. “We’re creating a game for young women in a formative part of their lives, women who are dealing with problems that they might not necessarily have the tools to broach,” Schofield says. “We wanted to show them a world where all their choices could be accepted. So we didn’t need to make a story about people trying to find acceptance. Let’s just assume this place has evolved past that.” While Wylde Flowers kicks off with a Tara making Grandma a nice mushroom risotto, things, as they say, escalate quickly. Without giving too much away, the story soon takes a peculiar turn, one that involves a dark forest with a mysterious gate, a shady-looking company of hooded figures in masks, curiously specific plant requests, and a cat that just keeps showing up. “We needed the story to be a slow-boiling frog,” Schofield says. We needed you to walk in and feel comfortable, but we didn’t want you to think you were just playing a farming game. Amanda Schofield, creative and managing director A farming sim that also includes rebound relationships, undisclosed trapdoors, 30 chatty characters, and a sprinkling of witchcraft is not exactly a simple undertaking; Schofield jokes that the game’s script is “just a little bit longer than War and Peace.” The game’s tone was the subject of daily discussion: Was it dark enough? Was it cozy enough? Did the mystery unfold at the right cadence, and did it pair with that warm welcome? “We needed you to walk in and feel comfortable,” says Schofield, “but we didn’t want you to think you were just playing a farming game.” That script fell first to Desiree Cifre, the game’s narrative director. Cifre signed onto the game a few months into development — the protagonist had a backstory, but (at the time) no name. “We made the choice to have a designed character,” says Cifre. “We wanted her to have specific depth in her backstory.” Cifre calls it a controversial choice. “But we felt it would ultimately give us more freedom in helping the players decide what kind of Tara their Tara is,” she says. Early sketches of Tara show how the character (and her hair) evolved throughout the development process. Much as finding the tone was a balancing act, Tara’s story needed to hit some consistent marks. “Often, I’m brought onto a project at the end, after they’ve decided on the design. It’s basically creating narrative reasons for why the design is the way it is,” says Cifre, with a laugh. “With this, Amanda’s design was developed in tandem with the narrative, which is why is works so well.” To begin sketching out the narrative, Schofield drew on her past experience as a senior producer on Sims FreePlay, where she had helped add a “story arc” to the game’s famous open-world structure. “My epiphany was that people love making their own stories, but that doesn’t mean they don’t like engaging with other handcrafted stories too,” she says. The initial draft came quickly. Cifre — alongside co-writer Elizabeth Ballou, who was brought in midway through production — wrote for a world that had “a foot in fantasy” but stayed close to the human element. “We didn’t want something that was arch or twee,” Cifre says, “but we wanted to tell players, ‘It’s OK for you to get really invested in these people.’” The game would be a farming sim with a malleable storyline that prized inclusivity and acceptance. To do that, the studio needed a way to tell a story about prejudice without necessarily targeting a particular group — and still match the game’s vibe. They found their answer in an unlikely set of headlines. “We got the idea to focus on witchcraft while watching an election in the United Kingdom,” she says. “A group of individuals had decided to hex the government as part of their campaign. It seemed like an appropriate idea for us.” Early sketches of the game’s mysterious witches, who harbor a surprising secret. It was appropriate on a number of levels. “Historically, [the witchcraft label] has been applied to groups — predominantly women — that people were afraid of,” Schofield says. “It’s been applied to healers, to people who have deep connections with the Earth. There’s always been an element of distrust for powerful women who are able to do things other people don’t understand.” Cifre dove into the literature of witchcraft, infusing the story with a melting pot of history and mythology drawn from Russia, South Africa, Iran, and more. In addition to core plot points, the script had to allow for enough agency in a player’s choices so that they could feel ownership over the direction of the story. Tara needed to be sincere and irreverent but also a little lost, adrift after the loss of her job and relationship. Her experience discovering the town — and being “gobsmacked” by her new reality, as Cifre puts it — mirrors the player’s experience. Serendipitously, the character, town, and game grew together. And then, there was the cat. Schofield says the game’s cats were “the most critical things to get perfect,” and she might not be kidding. “OK, so everyone in the studio is cat-obsessed,” says Schofield. “We have whole channels of pictures of cats. Honestly, the cats in the game were the most critical things to get perfect.” (She’s kidding — probably.) There was just one kitty-catch: The lone non-cat person in the room was Mike Taylor, a 20-year game design veteran — and the animation director charged with bringing them to life. “Mike probably had the most stressful job in the game,” Schofield laughs. “We’d have meetings with 25 people telling him, ‘No, this is how the cat should sound! More real! But also more cozy!” She laughs. “If you’ve never been in a video call with 25 people meowing, it’s something.” Schofield and Studio Drydock co-founder Alex Holkner first conceived of Wylde Flowers with a team of about a dozen, plotting out a snappy narrative that mirrored the “spring” section of the game. But after the initial development phase, they found the game expanding fourfold. “You know that meme with the red strings all over the wall?” she says. “That’s what our hires looked like after that first year.” Tara hits the lunch counter at Sophia’s diner. “No studio goes into their first game saying, ‘Let’s build the biggest game we’ve all ever done!’” Schofield laughs. “As a producer, I’m supposed to manage scale creep.” But the team’s passion rendered her pleasantly powerless — something was clearly happening. Ideas came from anywhere: Cifre pitched a character whose feet are backwards, concept artists furnished quests. Cultural consultants were brought in to ensure dialect and dialogue were accurate and respectful, sometimes changing a word or two of the script or even redrawing entire dwellings. “The animator would come in and say, ‘Look, I made this character’s hair move dynamically in the wind,’ and then the character artist would see it and say, ‘Well jeez, now I have to make the hair look better,’” she says. “It wasn’t competition. It was everyone wanting to meet a standard.” A look at Studio Drydock’s prototypes of the gregarious barman Damon. All told, Wylde Flowers has about 18 hours of dialogue, 350 cutscenes, and 230 names in the credits. (To be fair, that last figure does include the orchestra.) Reaching those figures took about three years. Early game designs experimented with a top-down view (the better for mobile play), but Drydock quickly determined that play felt too disconnected from the characters, especially in a game with so much acting. Subsequent versions brought the view down to an angle — and would zoom in and in until it got as close to the characters as it could. The scaled-way-up game’s story and visuals were taking shape, the growing team was deeply invested, and the town of Fairhaven was coming slowly to life. There was just one thing missing: its citizens. Schofield had been noticing the degree to which game studios were bringing in voice actors, especially the K-pop or J-pop stars turning up in games produced in Asia. The voices, she knew, were key. “We couldn’t have gotten away with calling it a narrative game without voicing it,” she says. Studio Drydock — and its gifted voice director, Krizia Bajos — took immense care in casting its voice actors; Kershaw laughs at how the the team auditioned “so many Taras” in pursuit of the magic combination of humor, lightheartedness, and deep emotion. Their choice was Valerie Rose Lohman (she/they), who earned a BAFTA nomination for her work in What Remains of Edith Finch. “It’s important that the voices of the characters are portrayed by the community being represented,” says Lohman. For the character of Kim, a non-binary (and emotionally guarded) town butcher, Drydock brought on Erika Ishii (she/they), a strong advocate for the LGBTQ+ community on social media. “The writing for Kim was so natural and the script was so rounded and fleshed-out,” Ishii says. “It was a dream.” The cast also includes BAFTA award-winning actor Cissy Jones as Hazel, Baraka May as Amira, and Michael Scott as Damon. “The writing for Kim was so natural,” says voice actor Erika Ishii. Story and game iteration was a running process; the team tested play and cutscenes on a shared Unity build, tweaking on the fly. Even in the recording studio, actors would sometimes improvise lines, or ask Cifre and Ballou to rewrite on the fly over Slack. The storyline’s pliable nature meant the actors would often play the same scene numerous ways. The scene in which Tara proposes, for instance, offered Lohman an especially engaging challenge since the game offers seven potential suitors. “Every time I recorded the proposal scenes, I was a giggling mess,” says Lohman. “The scope of representation was so fun, and I’d perform differently with, say, Kim than I would with Amira or Wesley. I feel like I got to help create seven lovely love stories.” “Every time I recorded the proposal scenes, I was a giggling mess,” says Valerie Rose Lohman, who plays Tara. It also helped that the actors shared a near-eerie similarity with their characters. Lohman had recently gone through a rough break-up and has an honest-to-goodness Grandma Hazel; Ishii, like Kim, is a queer non-binary Japanese/Chinese/American with a side shave. For its actors, Wylde Flowers was more than a job — it was an avenue to connect with a real-world community. “I’ve never worked on a project so thorough in its representation of diversity,” Lohman says. “I do believe that (games) have the power to change someone’s mind, because gaming makes you live in someone else’s shoes. That’s powerful.” Residents of Fairhaven gather for a town meeting (and a little music). “This has spoiled me for life,” laughs Cifre. “This came at a perfect time, when people were looking for these kinds of experiences. This game is about community, and it’s wonderful to see it resonate.” In other words, the experience was just a bit magic. “It was such a culture of supportiveness and kindness,” says Schofield. “It was lightning in a bottle.” Learn more about Wylde Flowers Download Wylde Flowers from Apple Arcade Behind the Design is a weekly series that explores design practices and philosophies from each of the 12 winners of the 2022 Apple Design Awards. In each story, we go behind the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to discover how they brought their remarkable creations to life. Explore more of the 2022 Behind the Design series

  • Upcoming transition from the XML feed to the App Store Connect API

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 19 Jul 2022 11:50:38 PDT

    The App Store Connect REST API lets you customize and automate tasks across developer tools, giving you greater flexibility and efficiency in your workflows. Starting in November 2022, you’ll need to use this API instead of the XML feed to automate management of in-app purchases, subscriptions, metadata, and app pricing. The XML feed will continue to support existing Game Center management functionality. Learn about the App Store Connect API

  • Behind the Design: Procreate

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 18 Jul 2022 09:00:47 PDT

    Procreate needs little introduction. For more than a decade, the world-class design app has served anyone looking to create high-caliber art: pro designers, calligraphers, influencers, schools making prom flyers, and pretty much everyone in between. Its ubiquity is equally matched by industry praise — in 2022, Procreate became the rare app to take home a second Apple Design Award, bookending its initial win back in 2013. “For that to happen again is humbling and disorienting and hugely energizing,” said Claire d’Este, Procreate’s chief product officer. “I feel like there’s now a fire for us to keep pushing harder.” “We’ve always tried to keep the barrier to entry low,” says Claire d’Este, Procreate’s chief product officer. Procreate’s latest win came in the Inclusivity category; judges called out how the app expanded its accessibility support by adding features like motion filtering and color description notifications — all atop Procreate's existing support for options like VoiceOver, Dynamic Type, and AssistiveTouch. Such additions are part of the natural evolution of an app that’s well into its second decade, but they also speak to the app’s guiding principle: Art is for everyone. “It’s not just a poster on a wall,” says Procreate CEO and co-founder James Cuda from Hobart, Tasmania, where the app’s 60-member team is based. “It’s a human condition to want to create. We’re trying to amplify that. And as the app grows, we want people to grow with it.” James Cuda, Procreate CEO and co-founder, says his design approach is to “get in there, roll my sleeves up, and have a bit of a mess.” Accessibility has been a Procreate priority since the app’s launch back in March 2011. “We’ve always tried to keep the barrier to entry low and have a friendly first experience,” says d’Este. “You can jump in and start drawing and it doesn't feel at all intimidating.” The app is also localized in 16 languages, though it refrains from using words as labels wherever possible so that it can remain easy to use in non-localized regions. “Iconography is a universal language,” says Cuda. ‘It must have been so simple!' To add the motion filtering and color description notification features, Cuda, d’Este, and the Procreate team stuck with an intricate and well-honed design strategy that’s served them for years: Do it and find out what happens. “We're sort of more like musicians than designers,” says Cuda. “We go into a room, huddle around, and hammer things out.” That approach has served Cuda his whole life. “I’ve always been a hacker,” he laughs. “I like to just get in there, roll my sleeves up, and have a bit of a mess.” For the most part, that means no wireframes, no sketches, and not a lot of overthinking. Cuda and the Procreate team take a stroll through their Tasmanian home base. “I did more mind-mapping back in the early days,” he says, “but personally I got muddled in that process because it’s such an abstract way of looking at things. The customer doesn’t see a wireframe; they see a product, and it’s much more meaningful when they can interact with that product. I just always found it easier to create pixel-perfect mockups — and Claire is great at hacking out quick examples of experience flows.” To illustrate, Cuda shares the tale of Quick Shape, a Procreate feature that helps people draw perfect circles and other shapes. For quite a while, customers had been asking for analog tools — rules, protractors, and the like — but the Procreate team resisted the addition of buttons and menus. “We thought, ‘Well, people don’t really need more accessories, they’re just trying to draw a circle.’ So we devised a gesture. When you draw your circle or shape, you just hold it and the app figures out what you’re trying to draw.” It was an elegant fix that fit right into the app’s existing interface — no extra buttons or menu dives required. “That was one of those really good breakthroughs,” Cuda shares. “It’s very intuitive, but it’s not conventional.” We always want to add more functionality, but we don't want the app to become overburdened. Claire d'Este Even with their slightly unorthodox approach to brainstorming and creation, Procreate’s UI and features still go through hundreds of iterations — Quick Shape took nearly three years to ship inside the app. “Making something simple is really complex,” says Cuda. “The beauty of the product is its accessibility.” d’Este and the Procreate team like to surround themselves with inspiration. The challenge is to maintain that accessibility while growing with the times. “We always want to add more functionality, but we don't want the app to become overburdened,” says d’Este. “The challenge is always: How do we keep that simplicity and those low barriers — but still give everyone the power they need to solve the problems they have?” The idea for motion filtering — an expanded version of the app’s Stabilization feature and one of the features that propelled the app to its ADA win — followed all those paths, and a few more. “If the customer is experiencing any kind of shakes or tremors as they're creating, we filter those out so the customer creates a beautifully perfect line, just like they intended,” says Cuda. “It feels like magic.” But it didn’t entirely start that way. The team first began exploring the idea through the app’s existing Streamline feature, which designers and calligraphers use to create beautiful, curved strokes. “We thought, ‘Why don’t we start there? Why don’t we turn up all the dials and see if it works for people who have any kind of tremors or motion issues?” says Cuda. There was just one problem: It didn’t work very well. “We had to scrap what we did and go back to the drawing board.” Procreate’s motion filtering tool — found in the Pressure and Smoothing menu — was a big part of the app's Apple Design Award win for inclusivity. The winning concept came from Lloyd Bottomley, the app’s first engineer and currently the company’s chief research officer. “He said, ‘What if we use something like audio signal processing? That essentially modulates the peaks and troughs of audio. Can we use that in a different way to smooth out the strokes?’” Bottomley worked for weeks, maybe months. “It was a long process!” laughs Cuda. “But when I saw the demo actually working, I remember grabbing a Pencil and seeing if I could disrupt it,” says Cuda. He couldn’t. The foundation was there, and the team got together to start riffing on it. “We were all drawing with him, so we were able to add comments like, ‘OK, so at this particular pressure level, could we smooth it out to this degree?’ and such. It sounds so ephemeral. But it was a really lovely kind of back and forth that got us there.” It’s also something that can be used by anyone. “It started out trying to help a certain demographic,” says Cuda, “but it’s great for everyone. I turned it on for almost everything I did.” The app’s brush library offers something for artists of all stripes. In the end, the feature not only represented a cool technological achievement but also tied fundamentally into the app’s mission. “When we talk about ‘Art is for everyone,’ we think: Well, does this appeal to everyone? Does it work for everybody?” says Cuda. “I think a lot of people think design is the wallpaper that you put up once you build something, or even a blanket term for making anything visual. But it’s really about solving problems. It’s about interfacing with machines in a very human way.” Learn more about Procreate Download Procreate from the App Store Behind the Design is a weekly series that explores design practices and philosophies from each of the 12 winners of the 2022 Apple Design Awards. In each story, we go behind the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to discover how they brought their remarkable creations to life. Explore more of the 2022 Behind the Design series

  • Behind the Design: A Musical Story

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 11 Jul 2022 07:00:53 PDT

    Press play on Charles Bardin’s A Musical Story, and you might find yourself traveling back in time. “It’s all about the freedom of ‘70s music,” says Bardin, the French composer/developer who created the Apple Design Award-winning game along with Alexandre Rey, Valentin Ducloux, and Maxime Constantinian. “We were inspired by the sense that, back then, anything could happen.” That ‘70s game: A Musical Story’s outfits and hairstyles were inspired by the “freedom” of the decade. Those initial notes of inspiration led to the harmonious mix of music, narrative, art, and novel gameplay present in A Musical Story. The rhythm game explores the primal, powerful connection between music and memory, following the protagonist as he reflects on moments from his past. It’s easy to spot the spirit of the ‘70s in the story’s dreamlike visuals: There are vintage guitars, fashion, and hairstyles aplenty, painted vividly in neon-splashed excess and washed-out color. There are scenes that defy comprehension (at one point, cackling cartoon birds make an appearance). And there’s a lot of great music. While A Musical Story was Bardin’s first time designing a game, he’s had a lot of experience with the genre. After studying at the Conservatoire de Musique de Lyon, he spent more than a decade creating (and covering) music for games. “In one game, you can mix everything. You can have electronic music with Japanese instruments and African drums,” he says. “I love changing things up like that.” Listen to the soundtrack to 'A Musical Story' In 2014, he launched a YouTube series called After Bit, in which he and his longtime friend and collaborator Ducloux interviewed prominent video game music composers about their craft and catalogs. Just three years later, the two began exploring a different partnership — the as-yet-untitled project that would become A Musical Story. As longtime fans of rhythm games, the team knew their strengths — but wanted to explore a project that put more emphasis on the music itself. “In most rhythm games, the notes come down on the screen and you play them when they arrive,” Bardin says. “I love that, but it’s also something you can play without any sound. I wanted [to create] a game that really relied on listening.” Meet the band: From left, art director Alexandre Ray, developer Maxime Constantinian, composer Valentin Ducloux, and developer and composer Charles Bardin. With that in mind, the team began prototyping scenes where the player would play short sequences of music using an intuitive two-button system. The simplified controls helped players focus on the music, rather than placement of their hands or physical patterns they needed to remember. These explorations also helped define the core narrative of the game for Bardin and the team: What if its mechanics could play into the story? “We thought: Let’s dive into a character who’s trying to remember something,” he says. Rhythm games aren’t traditionally known for their storytelling prowess — there aren’t many places to insert dialogue and exposition outside of song lyrics, and it’s all too easy to tune those out when trying to accomplish a tricky combo. Instead, A Musical Story uses visuals, musical motifs, and the occasional vocal moment to express an important moment or pivotal scene. I wanted a game that really relied on listening. Charles Bardin For example, early on in the game, you play a song called Her, in which the protagonist “goes to a pub, sees a girl playing music, and instantly falls in love with her,” says Bardin. “It begins with just a Rhodes piano and some bass and drums, but as you move closer to the stage, you hear more and more of the music. When you get close enough, you discover her face and her voice.” That voice belongs to singer Priscilla Cucciniello, and the scene marks the only time vocals appear in the game itself (though they reappear in the credits). “We wanted this moment to be powerful,” Bardin says. “This is the voice of the most important character in the game.” Listen to 'Her' from the soundtrack to 'A Musical Story' Each scene has its own distinct combination of music and visuals to move the story forward, but one interface element remains consistent: the circular bubbles you play to create the song in each scene. During their initial story explorations, Bardin was reminded of a French phrase — “bulles de memoire,” or memory bubbles. “I always found that term really charming,” he shares. It resonated with the rest of the team as well, and its visual representation became a core part of both gameplay mechanics and the overall feel of the game. Will it go ‘round in circles: Tap the bubbles in time with the music. As with the interface, mechanics, story, and visuals, the songs required a bit of a rethink on the traditional structures of a rhythm game. “Musical games tend to rely on electronic or techno music, where the beat is very clear,” Bardin says. “We wanted to prove that we could do it with more organic music — something that wasn’t quite so thump-thump-thump-thump.” Bardin and team spent a good bit of time shuffling through genres. “We wrote something like seven stories for the game,” says Bardin. “We had one version that was more modern, a classical version with more piano, and one that felt a bit more like (the French duo) Air.” In the end, Bardin simply went back to his own record collection, drawing inspiration from ‘70s heavy hitters like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix, as well as the endlessly inventive sound of Radiohead. The game’s soundtrack is inspired by some of Bardin’s favorite bands: Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, and Radiohead. To bring that vibe to the game, he recorded everything but drums on analog instruments: a Fender Rhodes keyboard, Hammond organ, and guitars with big, crunchy sounds. The songs were assembled in Wwise; the rest of the game was built in Unity. While the music of A Musical Story is designed to tell its story best in concert with the visuals and gameplay, when played back-to-back, the 26 songs form an hour-long concept album. “If you listen straight through, it never stops,” he says. “It’s one big piece.” Listen to the soundtrack to 'A Musical Story' But though it was conceived as a whole, the soundtrack has moments that stand out for Bardin and provide the backdrop to especially meaningful moments, like Her. It’s the only song in the game to feature vocals — albeit vocals in an invented language, mixing together French, Spanish, English, and Esperanto. Even if the lyrics are obfuscated, they’re still important. “[They] mean something,” Bardin smiles, “though I’d never tell what. But if you take the time to understand the story, and what happens when you listen to the voice at the end of the game, you’ll get it.” For the record, we didn’t get the answer from him either. But we’re pretty sure it’s something that would be meaningful in any decade. Learn More About A Musical Story Download A Musical Story on the App Store Behind the Design is a weekly series that explores design practices and philosophies from each of the 12 winners of the 2022 Apple Design Awards. In each story, we go behind the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to discover how they brought their remarkable creations to life. Explore more of the 2022 Behind the Design series

  • Behind the Design: Halide Mark II

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 05 Jul 2022 07:00:58 PDT

    Halide Mark II's Sebastiaan de With is an analog guy in a digital world. As co-founder and creative lead at Lux Optics — the company behind the Apple Design Award-winning camera app — de With is no stranger to design or digital photography. But he’s also a big fan of falling off the grid. “I love grabbing a pen and a notebook, going into the woods, and drawing and drawing,” de With says. That dual passion for analog art and digital design shines in Halide Mark II, an app that combines the power of a modern DSLR with the joy and beauty of a classic manual camera. “Cameras are just so fun to use,” de With says. “Give a child a camera and they’ll play with the aperture ring and the dials and the switches. I thought, ‘Maybe we can bring a semblance of that delight to an app on a piece of glass.’” Lens flair: Halide’s Sebastiaan de With designed the minimalist camera app to offer “excitement without intimidation.” Packed with pro-grade features but accessible to those learning their way around ISO settings, Halide beautifully strikes a balance between the professional and the practical. And its uncluttered, beautifully-organized feature set means that even high-end settings like depth mode and histograms are never more than a few taps away. “We didn’t say we made an app,” says de With. “We say we made a camera. That was a philosophical underpinning of everything we did.” de With and Lux Optics co-founder Ben Sandofsky know a thing or two about cameras. They bonded on social media over their shared love of photo gear, and a partnership soon followed: The duo released the first version of Halide in 2016, aiming to capture the accessibility of Apple’s camera app while providing easy access to advanced features. “The complexity is there,” says de With, “it’s just not going to overwhelm you. When you’re offered a somewhat accessible way into this world, it can kindle excitement without intimidation.” Halide provides both pro-grade manual controls and powerful autofocus settings. That philosophy was a key factor in recruiting Lux Optics’s third team member, iOS developer Rebecca Slatkin. “I really admired — and aligned with — their pragmatic approach to software development,” she says. “They weren’t reinventing the wheel. It was all simplicity.” While Slatkin had grown up around photography, her camera usage had been far more casual than either de With’s or Sandofsky’s — but that perspective brought even greater accessibility to Halide for people across all skill sets. “You know in bowling, where they put bumpers in the gutters to make sure you at least hit a pin?” says Slatkin. “We support [people] like that. No matter your background, you can take a great photo.” To translate this ethos to interface, the team designed the app’s controls to largely stay out of the way. “Other camera apps looked like flight simulators with lots of dials, which was intimidating, even for someone like me who loves film cameras,” de With says. "A camera is an extension of your body, and it works best when it creates muscle memory. We need to have consistent gestures. We need to be flexible without changing buttons around all the time.” Halide’s Ben Sandofsky — seen here testing the app firsthand — connected with de With over their shared love of photo gear. Color, too, is used carefully and deliberately in Halide, with a single yellow highlight color (another homage to classic cameras) used to indicate active state for a feature. When the team was redesigning Halide in 2020 for its Mark II release, however, they discovered that color wasn’t always enough to help someone identify what tools they were using — a lesson Slatkin learned the hard way when trying to experiment with the app’s RAW feature. “I remember I went to the Adirondacks and took all these photos, and was excited to show Sebastiaan and Ben and my dad,” she recounts, “and I got back and none of them were in RAW — because I thought the deactivated state was the opposite.” While frustrating, the real-world test helped the team update the feature’s button design to better reflect each individual mode when selected. Halide’s powerful macro mode is always just a few taps away. The team’s focus on simplicity for Halide goes beyond interface design — they also bring it to the design and implementation of their advanced camera features. Take their approach to RAW photography: While pros may love working with uncompressed images because it offers them more color data to manipulate, RAW processing can often be confusing and time-consuming for first-time photographers. In response, the team developed Instant RAW, which uses machine learning to help people shoot and process RAW images instantly. “It’s all about what you create,” says de With. “So we thought, ‘Let’s just skip to the part where you create nice photos.’” Sometimes, the team builds features that grow beyond Halide itself. Spectre Camera, a machine learning-powered long exposure app and the App Store’s 2019 App of the Year, was one such project; the team is also currently hard at work on Light Forecast, an app that uses machine learning and predictive models to alert you when a particularly picturesque sunset is coming up. (You might have caught a peek in the WWDC22 keynote.) Originally conceived as a Lock Screen widget, the app has evolved into a passion project for Slatkin. “As I was learning photography, I was trying to become more aware of light and golden hour,” she says, “and I found that being able to predict cloud coloration, sky coloration, and air quality makes a huge difference.” She’s spent the past several months collecting data, partnering with weather services, and tracking 30 webcams all over the country. “I’ve learned that we’ve been sleeping on some really good sunsets,” she says. Rebecca Slatkin and de With often find themselves learning from their own app. “I find myself being a lot more observant about my surroundings,” says Slatkin. That experience — and that unexpected delight — is what Lux Optics hopes people get out of their apps: the sense that cameras, even the complicated ones, are accessible to anyone with a device and a scenic location. “I hike a lot, and I find myself being a lot more observant about my surroundings,” says Slatkin. “It’s made me appreciate the beauty of things I wouldn’t have noticed before.” Simply put: You don’t need be to a pro photographer to use a pro camera app. "It’s a lie to say that some people have a creative gift and some don’t,” de With says. “Everybody has a unique perspective on the world. We hope we can help people discover theirs.” Learn more about Halide Mark II Download Halide Mark II - Pro Camera from the App Store Behind the Design is a weekly series that explores design practices and philosophies from each of the 12 winners of the 2022 Apple Design Awards. In each story, we go behind the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to discover how they brought their remarkable creations to life. Explore more of the 2022 Behind the Design series

  • Get ready for RoomPlan

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 30 Jun 2022 10:50:55 PDT

    Now your apps can create 3D floor plans — including key characteristics, such as dimensions and types of furniture. Powered by ARKit, this new Swift API utilizes the camera and LiDAR Scanner on iPhone and iPad to bring surroundings into your apps. Learn about RoomPlan

  • Update on apps distributed in South Korea

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 30 Jun 2022 00:00:31 PDT

    Apple designed the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover and download apps. Apple’s in-app purchase system, an integral part of our world-class commerce platform, offers people around the world a private and secure user experience across apps and Apple devices, and makes it easy for them to manage their purchases and subscriptions for digital goods and services. The Telecommunications Business Act in South Korea was recently amended to mandate that apps distributed by app market operators in South Korea be allowed to offer an alternative payment processing option within their apps. To comply with this law, developers can use the StoreKit External Purchase Entitlement. This entitlement allows apps distributed on the App Store solely in South Korea the ability to provide an alternative in-app payment processing option. Developers who want to continue using Apple’s in-app purchase system may do so and no further action is needed. If you’re considering using this entitlement, it’s important to understand that some App Store features, such as Ask to Buy and Family Sharing, will not be available to your users, in part because we cannot validate payments that take place outside of the App Store’s private and secure payment system. Apple will not be able to assist users with refunds, purchase history, subscription management, and other issues encountered when purchasing digital goods and services through an alternative purchasing method. You will be responsible for addressing such issues. Learn more

  • Behind the Design: Gibbon: Beyond the Trees

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 27 Jun 2022 00:00:10 PDT

    Why design games? For Apple Design Award winner Felix Bohatsch, it’s about more than creating delightful diversions or telling a great story. “[They’re] a kind of asynchronous communication,” says the Vienna-based designer. “I can share topics and thoughts with people all over the world. I find that very rewarding — if it turns out well!” he adds with a laugh. Gibbon: Beyond the Trees turned out pretty well. Developed by Broken Rules, of which Bohatsch is a co-founder, Gibbon casts you as an ape who flings, swings, and slides their way through a beautifully realized landscape. The flinging-around-trees mechanic is unique, but easy to learn — even for earthbound humans. Welcome to the jungle: Gibbon begins in a gorgeously drawn forest. “The goal was to create a flow state with the gameplay, where players get into the swinging and jumping without thinking too much about it,” says Bohatsch, who conceived the game with Clemens Scott, Broken Rules’s creative director and lead artist. “What we hope is that the device sort of vanishes, and all you have is the players, world and characters.” Still, there’s more to Gibbon than free-flying fun. “We quickly realized we couldn’t just build this purely escapist infinite runner, where everything’s lush and beautiful and happy,” Bohatsch says. “Gibbons are endangered. They’re losing their habitats and their forests are being destroyed. And that led to my second motivation: To show the world the difficulties gibbons face. Not to be preachy — but to show how it might feel to lose your family, or to live in a world where there’s maybe not much place for you.” The game’s bustling cityscapes are a commentary on how gibbons are losing their habitats, says Bohatsch. The digital draw For a short while, Bohatsch felt that there might not be a place for him in design. He applied to university with the hopes of studying graphic design but wasn’t accepted to the program he was aiming for. “I thought, well, I’ll learn more about computers, since that’s what designers use,” he says. He spent the next few years learning the tools of the trade and the science behind it. Though he certainly played his share of games, he never considered himself a hardcore gamer. What he did feel was the draw of games — the way they could unify graphic design, interactive design, and computer science. When an opportunity to study game design materialized, he jumped at the chance. “I’d never seen myself as a game designer, but that moment was where I realized I could combine my passions and put them to good use.” I wanted to evoke feelings that might be linked to the natural world [without] re-creating it. Felix Bohatsch, Broken Rules co-founder Appropriately enough, the idea for Gibbon came from a family trip to the zoo, where Bohatsch found himself noticing the animals’ remarkable agility and almost otherworldly movements. The Broken Rules team explored variations on that idea over several years as they worked on other projects, trying to find the right translation of that motion to a screen. “We didn’t want a simulation game; we wanted a sense of abstraction,” Bohatsch says. “I wanted to evoke feelings that might be linked to the natural world [without] re-creating it.” To breathe life into the game’s rich hand-drawn look — the lush forests full of spreading branches, inviting vines, and mighty tree trunks — the team turned to London-based artist and designer Catherine Unger, a game veteran who’d worked on such titles as Tangle Tower. “The goal was for the visuals to look like an illustration,” says Unger. That meant adding hand-painted 3D textures, rough edges, and even a little wobble in the game’s linework to capture that storybook feeling. The team initially used 2D assets to create a parallaxing environment with the game, then experimented with turning the canopies themselves into 3D splines. “It looked amazing!” says Unger. “That snowballed into a discussion that led to [more] 3D foreground elements that gave the game a whole new level of depth.” 'There was a lot of debate' When it came time to replicate the animals’ movements in the game, the Broken Rules team, well, broke the rules. “Gibbon has a kind of inverted control scheme.” Bohatsch says. “You hold when the gibbon has to hold, and release when the gibbon has to jump. Basically, whenever the gibbon collides or interacts with a tree or a vine, that’s when you touch the device.” Early sketches show how the Broken Rules team reached for a “poetic connection” between player and character. To refine the mechanic, Broken Rules brought on Canadian developer Eddy Boxerman to sharpen the game’s main physics and movement. “We never wanted it to be about pixel-perfect timing, but we did want some kind of challenge that gave you agency over your actions.” The team tried out alternate outcomes for not lifting your finger at the right time, including one that levied a penalty and another that... did pretty much nothing. “The gibbon would just jump away on his own. It was easier for some players,” laughs Bohatsch, “but it was getting pretty boring.” Gibbon's jump-to-release mechanic subverts the traditional press-to-jump action of most games, but the Broken Rules team stands by it. “There was a lot of debate about whether this was a good idea,” he says, “but I think it creates a kind of poetic connection between you and the character.” The mechanic created a challenge for Unger too. “It was particularly difficult to create the art style for the trees; the gameplay meant that the trees looked a bit alien and unusual,” she says. It was game co-creator Scott who solved that challenge, suggesting that Unger and team limit tree canopies to the background branches and keep the main gameplay branches free for gibbon swinging. The games we want to build aren’t necessarily about being realistic, but about developing emotions. Felix Bohatsch The poetic connection Bohatsch mentions is the keystone of the game — and it’s been Broken Rules’s specialty since the studio's 2009 inception. The Broken Rules catalog includes such well-regarded titles as And Yet It Moves and Secrets of Raetikon, as well as two more Apple Design Award winners: Eloh, a rhythmic puzzle game, and Old Man’s Journey, whose main character follows his own arc of loss, regret, and reconciliation. “It's really about emotion, right?" he says. “The games we want to build aren’t necessarily about being realistic, but about developing emotions. When I was younger I played a game called Ico, and there was a moment when you held a button to grab hands with a secondary character. It felt so great. All you did was press a button. But the characters and their reactions were so natural and evocative. That showed me how games can create a whole range of different emotions.” In the end, Gibbon is about a search for family. Emotion isn’t the only thing at play in Gibbon — the team has a careful eye on embodiment, too. “Players tend to have a bias toward the characters we play,” says Bohatsch. “In Old Man’s Journey, we heard from players about how, as they played, the developed more empathy for the old man.” It’s the same with Gibbon — putting yourself in the hands of another creature creates that connection from the first jump. This immersion carries through in the game’s environments. When play begins, you’re in a lush forest: swinging amongst spreading branches, inviting vines, and mighty tree trunks. As the game continues, however, those forests begin to thin out. The primal green backdrop so familiar to those early moments is replaced by harsh, chugging construction vehicles and the dissonant rumble of man-made machinery. “I wanted the deforestation scenes to feel starkly different from the jungle scenes, not just for visual variety but also for emotional impact,” says Unger. “The more realistic desaturated tones in the deforested areas mirror the empty feelings of the gibbons in the game. But they’re also a true-to-life representation of a jungle devastated by human impact.” The game’s deforestation scenes have a dark, unsettling feel — especially when contrasted with the natural beauty of previous levels. In the end, Gibbon takes its place among Broken Rules’s titles as a game that’s something more. "I want people to think about gibbons and about how much space we can still give them,” he says. “We want to linger in people’s minds after they’ve played.” And he wants to continue creating games that speak to something bigger, something more universal, something that can’t be created in a vacuum — or, sometimes, even a studio. “If I had any advice for aspiring designer, it would be to go out in the world and live a life outside of games,” he says. “Travel, talk to lots of people, read books, go to concerts. Play games, sure, but don’t spend all your time with them. There’s so much inspiration in the world, whether it’s coming from nature or other human beings or other species. That’s what we’re trying to design: new ways to look at the world through the gaming lens.” Learn more about Gibbon: Beyond the Trees Download Gibbon: Beyond the Trees from the App Store Behind the Design is a weekly series that explores design practices and philosophies from each of the 12 winners of the 2022 Apple Design Awards. In each story, we go behind the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to discover how they brought their remarkable creations to life. Explore more of the 2022 Behind the Design series

  • Meet the prototypers

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 20 Jun 2022 15:00:09 PDT

    Creating a great app, game, or product takes work. Brainstorming ideas, thoughtful iteration, and — as Apple’s Prototyping team knows all too well — feedback. Constant feedback. “If we’re not getting feedback on something, we’re just not showing it to the right people,” says Apple designer Julian Missig. Missig and several other members of the Prototyping team recently hosted a conversation in the Design Digital Lounge for WWDC22 attendees, where they shared their approaches to creating useful prototypes, the value of outside feedback, bringing that special ✨sparkle✨ to early experiences, and design best practices. Check out a few of the highlights from that conversation below. What’s your process when beginning a new prototyping project? We make something, show it to people, learn from their feedback — and do it over and over again. We don't really count how many "drafts" we make, but everything we work on undergoes many, many iterations. How do you even know where to start? It’s important to know your biggest questions around an idea. For example, when we were working on Scribble for iPad and Apple Pencil, we really wanted to understand how people reacted to their handwriting being converted to digital text. What made that process more understandable? What kinds of input could lead to confusing situations? The goal of prototypes is to answer these kinds of questions before investing a lot of time into making things real — hence why it's important to keep your prototyping process light and nimble. We try not to be too rigid. Often, we’re starting with a specific problem to solve. But sometimes we make things just because they seem interesting, and then figure out why and what they can help solve. It’s about giving ourselves space to figure out what feels great. What kinds of tools do you use for initial sketches and ideas? The best tool is whatever you're most comfortable with — what is going to let you try things rapidly? For some people, that's code; others, sketching on iPad or animation. Everyone on our team uses different tools and has workflows that work for them. We’ve also found that [Apple Design Award winner] Looom makes animating so fast that we can create simple hand-drawn animations to describe the kinds of interactions and motion we want in a prototype during a meeting (or immediately after one). How do you deal with creative blocks and starting from a blank page? Spending time doing things that aren’t design-related! Playing music, spending time outdoors, reading books about random obscure topics... these can all spark unexpected connections and inspirations that find their way into our work. It's also great to dive into the history of a topic — for example, the history of handwriting through various cultures proved very inspirational when working on Apple Pencil. What’s the ratio of looks to functionality when making a prototype? Looks for the sake of looks are rarely worth spending lots of early time on, but sometimes different aesthetic directions or visual metaphors are definitely things you want to prototype! The key is to make the least amount you need and still learn something. How extensively do you test your early designs — do you only share it within your team? We definitely show prototypes to broader teams as well as our own. It's less about testing in a traditional, thorough sense, and more about getting lots of people from different backgrounds to try it and tell us what they think. How do you approach giving feedback to each other? Always bring positive feedback when sharing the work. It should never be about personal judgement, but how to make the app experience better. For example, avoid something like "I don't like this color" in favor of a comment like "I think blue instead of red would better communicate what the experience is about." How often do you change direction or evolve a prototype after feedback sessions? We try to keep more than one direction open at a time. It might mean having multiple different prototypes, or a single option that has sliders and preferences and can be adjusted. If someone gives us good feedback, we’ll incorporate it or try it out. If it’s in conflict with the previous direction, we keep both around to let people compare. Have you ever had a product that had little to no changes after feedback? A “hole-in-one”? Never! If we’re not getting feedback on something, we’re just not showing it to the right people. We’ll eventually show it to someone who will have feedback — either improvements or reasons why it won’t work. That’s the fun part about working with a whole lot of people who are very talented at what they do. How do you go about adding magic, delight, and whimsy to a prototype? Give yourself time to not worry about solving the problem. “What other ideas does this give us?” can mean [something] completely unrelated. But if something seems interesting, it’s worth trying. Those weird-but-interesting ideas can inspire us to connect the weird/whimsical inspiration to something that actually solves the problem. How does your team go about prototyping advanced interactions without having to fully build something? We find a way to fake it! “Prototyping for AR“ from WWDC18 has good examples of clever prototyping that don’t involve code at all. There are ways to fake things with paper printouts or clever video capture too. And simple Keynote animations can teach a lot. WWDC18 Prototyping for AR Designing for AR can be intimidating and discovering design flaws late in the process can be costly. See how low-tech traditional prototyping techniques can help you validate and refine your AR app and game design ideas. Are there any other good WWDC sessions on prototyping past or present you’d recommend? You can search "prototyping" in the Developer app or on developer.apple.com to find all sessions we’ve worked on, including "Fake it ‘till you make it" from WWDC14 and "The life of a button" from WWDC18. There’s also "Discoverable design" from WWDC21, which is more about discoverability — something we care a lot about! WWDC18 The Life of a Button An in-depth exploration of essential interaction, visual and sound design principles and techniques through the design of a simple button. WWDC14 Prototyping: Fake It Till You Make It Make better apps by trying things out first, before you write any code. Get a glimpse of Apple's prototyping process and the range of tools and techniques we use, some of which might surprise you. WWDC21 Discoverable design Discover how you can create interactive, memorable experiences to onboard people into your app. We’ll take you through discoverable design practices and learn how you can craft explorable, fun interfaces that help people grasp the possibilities of your app at a glance. We’ll also show you how... Do you ever have to stop and refocus a vision or design — say, if too many new ideas have been added? Definitely. When that happens, we typically try to focus on what people loved the most. If you have dozens of things competing for your attention, focusing on the two or three that seem to be winning hearts over is a good way to move forward without getting bogged down. Also, sometimes you may have to accept that while you have a bunch of kinda cool things, there's no one true winner. That's OK! There's always a way for things you liked to make their way into other work in the future. What’s one piece of advice you’d want to share? Always remember what you’re building a prototype for and what you’re trying to answer. We sometimes get caught up in trying for a perfectly polished prototype. But it should always be about quickly and efficiently testing a panel of different ideas. Sometimes it helps to get away from the screen and use low-tech tools. How would you sum up the team’s design philosophy? Make things, show them to people, learn from their feedback! That should be a tattoo at this point.

  • Behind the Design WWDC22

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 13 Jun 2022 10:00:13 PDT

    The Apple Design Awards honors excellence in innovation, ingenuity, and technical achievement in app and game design. Our award-winning designers take thoughtful and creative approaches to their apps and games, giving people new ways to work, play, or imagine things that were never before possible. To celebrate our 2022 Apple Design Award-winning apps and games, we've put together a series of interviews with their creators. Starting June 27, go behind the design and learn about our winners' creative process, challenges, and how they brought their bold and distinctive ideas to life. Gibbon: Beyond the Trees Why design games? For Apple Design Award winner Felix Bohatsch, it’s about more than creating delightful diversions or telling a great story. Articles Behind the Design: Gibbon: Beyond the Trees Why design games? For Apple Design Award winner Felix Bohatsch, it’s about more than creating delightful diversions or telling a great story. Halide Mark II Discover how this Apple Design Award winner created a minimalist camera with (lens) flair. Articles Behind the Design: Halide Mark II Discover how this Apple Design Award winner created a minimalist camera with (lens) flair. A Musical Story Press play on Charles Bardin’s A Musical Story, and you might find yourself traveling back in time. Articles Behind the Design: A Musical Story A harmonious mix of songs, narrative, art, and novel gameplay. Procreate Learn how the team behind Procreate champions ‘Art is for everyone’. Articles Behind the Design: Procreate The design app's ADA is driven by the Procreate team's guiding principle: Art is for everyone. Wylde Flowers Discover how Studio Drydock created this charming Apple Design Award-winning game. Articles Behind the Design: Wylde Flowers Odio Coming August 1. MARVEL Future Revolution Coming August 8. Slopes Coming August 15. LEGO Star Wars Castaways Coming August 22. (Not Boring) Habits Coming August 29. Overboard! Coming September 6. Rebel Girls Coming September 12.

  • WWDC22 resources and survey

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 10 Jun 2022 14:16:16 PDT

    Thank you to everyone who joined us for an amazing week. We hope you found value, connection, and fun. You can continue to: Watch sessions at any time. Read about newly announced technologies. Get sample code from sessions. Post on the Apple Developer Forums. We’d love to know what you thought of this year’s conference. If you’d like to tell us about your experience, please complete the WWDC22 survey. Take the survey

  • Further updates on StoreKit External Entitlement for dating apps in the Netherlands storefront

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 10 Jun 2022 13:28:26 PDT

    Following productive conversations with the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM), today we’re introducing additional adjustments to Apple’s plan to comply with the regulator’s order pertaining to dating apps on the App Store in the Netherlands: Developers of dating apps in the Netherlands can use the StoreKit External Purchase Entitlement, the StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlement, or both entitlements. In accordance with the ACM’s wishes, we’ve made adjustments to the user interface requirements announced this past March for developers who choose to use either or both of the entitlements. We’ve adjusted the payment processing provider criteria for developers who wish to use either of the entitlements. The 3 percent commission discount also applies to in-app purchases that qualify for a lower commission rate (for example, App Store Small Business Program enrollees or subscription services after one year of paid service — both of which already qualify for a 15% commission). As a reminder, developers of dating apps who want to continue using Apple’s in-app purchase system — which we believe is the safest and most secure way for users to purchase digital goods and services — may do so and no further action is needed. We don’t believe some of these changes are in the best interests of our users’ privacy or data security. Because Apple is committed to constructive engagement with regulators, we’re making the additional changes at the ACM’s request. As we’ve previously said, we disagree with the ACM’s original order and are appealing it. Learn more

  • Challenge: Menu bar extras with SwiftUI

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 10 Jun 2022 08:00:02 PDT

    And now, a brief message from your friend, the Mac menu bar: Hi! ?? I’m the menu bar! I always love making File → New Friends. We might have first met in the early 1980s, but I’ve only gotten more powerful and helpful (Format → Font → Humble Brag). I’ve always had opinions. During the 90s, I was the one who told you you were exceptional every night (Special → Sleep). I have constant viewpoints about what time it is. And I don’t mean to Window → Minimize my contributions, but even Siri wants to hang out with me. I have enjoyed capturing your full attention for some years. But now I’ve decided to share the Spotlight. Menu bar extras have arrived in SwiftUI! So here's your challenge: Build me a menu bar extra in SwiftUI that I’d wear with pride. I’d drop down with joy if you’d make a little utility for me, and I'd be a click above ecstatic if you gave me the honor of hosting a small portion of your app. Begin the challenge To help you build a menu bar extra and complete the Mac menu bar's challenge, we've compiled a few resources to help you get started: WWDC22 Bring multiple windows to your SwiftUI app Discover the latest SwiftUI APIs to help you present windows within your app’s scenes. We’ll explore how scene types like MenuBarExtra can help you easily build more kinds of apps using SwiftUI. We’ll also show you how to use modifiers that customize the presentation and behavior of your app... MenuBarExtra Explore the Human Interface Guidelines for menu bar extras We welcome you to visit the SwiftUI Study Hall to collaborate on this challenge! Ask questions, connect with other developers, and share your creations. And to close out this challenge, one more note from the menu bar: Make sure you File → Share with me what you did on Twitter with the hashtag #WWDC22Challenges. We hope you’ve had a great Edit → Select All → WWDC22!

  • WWDC22 Daily Digest: Friday

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 10 Jun 2022 07:00:07 PDT

    Welcome! It's time for our final morning briefing. (We know — we can't believe it's Friday, either.) Before we power down for the week, however, we’ve got one more great day of events and activities. Let’s begin by catching up on Day 4: WWDC22 WWDC22 Day 4 recap It's time to review Day 4. Check out the Thursday highlights and tune in for a quick preview of the last day of WWDC22. Send us your feedback about WWDC22 Spent time watching sessions, participating in Digital Lounges, attending labs, or trying out challenges this week as part of WWDC22? We’d love to know what you thought. Take five minutes out of your day — less time than a coffee break! — and fill out the WWDC22 Developer Survey. Take part in the WWDC22 Developer Survey Spotlight on sessions, Digital Lounges, and labs Our final day packs in a bunch of great sessions: Discover how you can accelerate machine learning with Metal, bring multiple windows to your SwiftUI app, and learn how to optimize your app or game’s memory and battery consumption. WWDC22 Accelerate machine learning with Metal Discover how you can use Metal to accelerate your PyTorch model training on macOS. We'll take you through updates to TensorFlow training support, explore the latest features and operations of MPS Graph, and share best practices to help you achieve great performance for all your machine learning... WWDC22 Bring multiple windows to your SwiftUI app Discover the latest SwiftUI APIs to help you present windows within your app’s scenes. We’ll explore how scene types like MenuBarExtra can help you easily build more kinds of apps using SwiftUI. We’ll also show you how to use modifiers that customize the presentation and behavior of your app... WWDC22 Power down: Improve battery consumption Discover how you can limit your power usage and help people get even more out of your app. We'll show you how you can reduce battery drain from your app by making four key changes to your code. Learn how to add Dark Mode to your app and benefit from OLED displays, audit frame rates from secondary... WWDC22 Profile and optimize your game's memory Learn how Apple platforms calculate and allocate memory for your game. We'll show you how to use Instruments and the Game Memory template to profile your game, take a memory graph to monitor current memory use, and analyze it using Xcode Memory Debugger and command line tools. We'll also explore... Caught up on sessions for the day? Join us in the Digital Lounges for Q&As with our ARKit, WidgetKit, Metal teams, and more — and enjoy a live watch party with the presenter of "Explore the machine learning developer experience." Live from the Developer Center The Developer Center played host to several developer podcasts during WWDC week, including Under the Radar, Swift by Sundell, Hacking with Swift, and The Talk Show. Apple senior vice president of worldwide marketing Greg Joswiak and senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi chat with John Gruber during a taped broadcast of The Talk Show. Listen to Under the Radar to learn how you can visit the new Developer Center, catch up on all the new SwiftUI features in iOS 16 with Hacking with Swift, and — in an exclusive reveal — find out on The Talk Show the hair accessory senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi almost wore during the keynote. The Talk Show: WWDC22 Hacking with Swift: What's new in SwiftUI for iOS 16 Swift by Sundell: Swift 5.7, generics, and the road to Swift 6 Under the Radar: WWDC 2022 Special Peek behind the design WWDC22 may be winding down, but the Behind the Design series is just ramping up. Starting June 27, check back weekly for behind-the-scenes interviews with the creators of our 2022 Apple Design Award-winning apps and games. A WWDC22 wrap Thanks for coming to a magical, memorable WWDC. It’s been an incredible week — welcoming people to the Developer Center and Apple Park, connecting online in the lounges and labs, exploring sessions and documentation — and we appreciate the opportunity to share it with you.

  • Best of WWDC22

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 09 Jun 2022 16:33:11 PDT

    Best of WWDC22 WWDC may have come to a close, but there's still so much to explore. Catch up on the highlights and enjoy videos all year long. WWDC22 daily dispatches If it's a quick daily report you need or a catchup on all the special events of the week, we've got you covered. WWDC22 WWDC22 Day 1 recap It's time for your Day 1 report from Apple HQ. Check out all the exciting announcements and new technologies unveiled at WWDC22 — and learn more about what's coming tomorrow. WWDC22 WWDC22 Day 2 recap Ready for your Day 2 briefing? Catch up on all the great sessions from Tuesday and get a sneak peek at the day ahead. WWDC22 WWDC22 Day 3 recap Your Day 3 status report is here. Catch up on the latest from WWDC22 and discover what's coming to a Thursday near you. WWDC22 WWDC22 Day 4 recap It's time to review Day 4. Check out the Thursday highlights and tune in for a quick preview of the last day of WWDC22. WWDC22 WWDC22 Day 5 recap It's time to close out Day 5 of WWDC with one last report. Best of Accessibility & Inclusion Learn how to build apps and games for everyone. WWDC22 Add accessibility to your Unity games Learn how you can make your Unity games accessible on Apple platforms using our open source Accessibility plug-in. Follow along as we add support for assistive technologies like VoiceOver and Switch Control to a sample Unity game project. We'll show you how you can automatically scale text with... WWDC22 Design for Arabic · صمّم بالعربي تعرّف على المبادئ الأساسية لتصميم الواجهات الرقمية باللغة العربية. سواء كنت تود تصميم تطبيق أو لعبة خصيصًا للاستخدام العربي، أو تود ترجمة تطبيق من لغة أخرى إلى... Topic Pages Accessibility & Inclusion Best of App Services Extend your app experience with App Intents, SharePlay, WidgetKit, Focus, and more. WWDC22 Complications and widgets: Reloaded Our widgets code-along returns as we adventure onto the watchOS and iOS Lock Screen. Learn about the latest improvements to WidgetKit that help power complex complications on watchOS and can help you create Lock Screen widgets for iPhone. We’ll show you how to incorporate the latest SwiftUI views... WWDC22 Enhance collaboration experiences with Messages Discover how you can help improve communication and collaboration in your app with Collaboration in Messages. Learn how to tie a document to Messages conversations for simple sharing and discussion. Explore how you can keep everyone in the conversation up to date on the latest activity in the... WWDC22 Meet WeatherKit WeatherKit offers valuable weather data for your apps and services to help people stay up to date on the latest conditions. Learn how to use Swift and REST APIs to access information about the current weather, 10-day hourly forecasts for temperature, expected precipitation, wind reports, the UV... WWDC22 Dive into App Intents Learn how you can make your app more discoverable and increase app engagement when you use the App Intents framework. We'll take you through the powerful capabilities of this Swift framework, explore the differences between App Intents and SiriKit Intents, and show you how you can expose your app's... WWDC22 Make a great SharePlay experience Discover how you can design and build a great SharePlay experience. We'll show you how to identify activities in your app that can help bring everyone together — even while they're apart. Learn best practices to help you design for group activities, create intuitive interactions, and build... Topic Pages App Services Best of App Store Distribution & Marketing Discover effective strategies for growing your audience. WWDC22 What's new with SKAdNetwork SKAdNetwork helps advertisers measure the success of ad campaigns while maintaining user privacy. We'll explore the latest updates to ad attributions including hierarchical source IDs, hierarchical conversion values, multiple conversions, and SKAdNetwork attributions for web ads. We'll also take... WWDC22 What's new in App Store Connect Discover the latest updates to App Store Connect, your suite of tools to create, manage, and submit apps on the App Store. Learn about enhancements to the submission experience — including the ability to manage submissions in App Store Connect on iOS and iPadOS — as well as the newest updates... Topic Pages App Store Distribution & Marketing Best of Audio & Video Learn about improvements to AVFoundation, MusicKit, ShazamKit, and more. WWDC22 Meet ScreenCaptureKit Learn how ScreenCaptureKit can deliver high-performance screen capture for your macOS screen sharing applications, video conferencing apps, game streaming services, and more. We'll explore the building blocks of this API, learn how to configure streams to capture on-screen video and audio content,... WWDC22 Create a great video playback experience Find out how you can use the latest iOS and iPadOS system media players to build amazing media apps. We’ll share how we designed the updated player and give you best practices and tips to help you design media experiences of your own. We’ll also explore Live Text for video and show you how to... WWDC22 Support multiple users in tvOS apps Discover how you can create personalized, individual experiences in your tvOS app. We’ll show you how you can offer a single checkbox to store profile data, game save states, and more, providing each person with the same level of data separation they'd have on a personal device like iPhone.... Topic Pages Audio & Video Best of Augmented Reality Explore new realities in your app with RoomPlan, ARKit, and RealityKit. WWDC22 Discover ARKit 6 Discover how you can build more refined and powerful augmented reality apps with ARKit 6. We'll explore how you can create AR experiences rendered in 4K HDR and take you through camera settings customizations for your app. We'll also share how you can export high-resolution still images from an... WWDC22 Create parametric 3D room scans with RoomPlan RoomPlan can help your app quickly create simplified parametric 3D scans of a room. Learn how you can use this API to easily add a room scanning experience. We'll show you how to adopt this API, explore the 3D parametric output, and share best practices to help your app get great results with every... WWDC22 Qualities of great AR experiences Discover best practices and techniques to help craft magical AR experiences for iPhone and iPad. We’ll provide guidance to help you determine if AR is a good fit for your experience, explore examples of great AR apps, and take you through key considerations when designing for augmented reality. Topic Pages Augmented Reality Best of Business & Education Bring Apple hardware, software, and services into your classroom and office. WWDC22 What's new in managing Apple devices Explore enhancements to device management across Apple platforms. Improve device deployment workflows using the latest version of Apple Configurator for iPhone. Learn about identity technologies and MDM protocol updates for macOS, iOS and iPadOS. We'll also share an exciting change in how we... WWDC22 Discover Sign in with Apple at Work & School Learn how you can support Sign In with Apple for Managed Apple IDs in organizational settings. We'll introduce you to Sign In with Apple at Work & School and explore how education apps can harness the power of this REST API to streamline the import process for student and class information. We’ll... WWDC22 Explore Apple Business Essentials Learn more about Apple Business Essentials — a complete solution that brings together device management, 24/7 support, and cloud storage for your small business. We'll explore how you can use features like Collections to manage apps and settings for every iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV in your... WWDC22 Create engaging content for Swift Playgrounds Learn how you can build guided instructional content designed for Swift Playgrounds. Follow along with us as we explore how you can add a guide to a completed sample code project. We'll demonstrate how to add tasks to your learning center to show off relevant code and optional experiment tasks that... Topic Pages Business & Education Best of Design Learn how to ideate, iterate, and create great interfaces and experiences. WWDC22 What's new in SF Symbols 4 Explore the latest updates to SF Symbols, Apple’s extensive library of iconography designed to integrate seamlessly with San Francisco, the system font for all Apple platforms. Discover the latest additions to the SF Symbols library and new categories in the app. Learn about the new Automatic... WWDC22 Design App Shortcuts Learn how you can surface great features from your app directly in Siri, Spotlight, and the Shortcuts app. We'll introduce you to App Shortcuts, provide best practices to help you evaluate features in your app that would work well as App Shortcuts, and take you through the process of creating one... WWDC22 Explore navigation design for iOS Familiar navigation patterns can help people easily explore the information within your app — and save them from unnecessary confusion. We’ll show you how to take advantage of existing navigation structures to simplify complex interactions in your app without compromising its personality. Learn... WWDC22 Writing for interfaces The words and phrases you choose for your app matter. Whether you’re writing an alert, building an onboarding experience, or describing an image for accessibility, learn how you can design through the lens of language and help people get the most from your app. We'll show you how to create clear,... WWDC22 Design app experiences with charts Learn how you can enhance your app with charts to communicate data with more clarity and appeal. We'll show you when to use charts, how to use them and how they work together in a chart design system. Topic Pages Design Best of Developer Tools Everything you need to know to build the next great app or game. WWDC22 What's new in Xcode Discover the latest productivity and performance advancements in Xcode 14. We’ll introduce you to the fully redesigned SwiftUI canvas experience, explore enhancements to code completion and navigation, and take you through performance improvements we’ve made throughout the entire development... WWDC22 Get the most out of Xcode Cloud Discover how you can get the most out of Xcode Cloud, Apple’s continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) service. We'll take you through an overview of Xcode Cloud and how it connects with Xcode and App Store Connect. We'll also explore the Xcode Cloud Usage Dashboard in App Store... WWDC22 Use Xcode to develop a multiplatform app Learn how you can build apps for multiple Apple platforms using Xcode 14. We'll show you how to streamline app targets, maintain a common codebase, and share settings by default. We'll also explore how you can customize your app for each platform through conditionalizing your settings and code. Topic Pages Developer Tools Best of Graphics & Games Level up your apps and games with Metal 3. WWDC22 Discover Metal 3 Harness the full potential of Apple silicon in your app with Metal 3. We'll introduce you to the latest features, improvements, and tooling. We'll also explore how you can use advanced features and compiler tools to load resources faster, compile shader binaries at build time, process complex... WWDC22 Plug-in and play: Add Apple frameworks to your Unity game projects Help make your Unity app or game an even better experience on Apple platforms. Learn how you can add Apple technologies directly to your projects with six plug-ins: Apple.Core, Game Center, Game Controller, Accessibility, Core Haptics, and PHASE. We'll show you how you can add new gameplay... Topic Pages Graphics & Games Best of Health & Fitness Get your app in shape with the latest in health and fitness technologies. WWDC22 What's new in HealthKit Bring the latest HealthKit features to your health & fitness app. We'll show you how to capture more detailed sleep data through sleep stages, track swim-bike-run and interval workouts with the enhanced Workout API, and save vision prescriptions — including an image of the physical prescription... WWDC22 Get timely alerts from Bluetooth devices on watchOS Find out how Bluetooth devices can send timely and relevant alerts to Apple Watch. We'll show you how to take advantage of periodic data in complications, explore background peripheral discovery, and help you learn how to use characteristic monitoring in watchOS. We'll also share best practices and... WWDC22 Build device-to-device interactions with Network Framework Learn how you can create integrated content experiences across multiple devices. We’ll introduce you to DeviceDiscoveryUI, which makes it easy to set up communication pathways and connect Apple TV with other devices like iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. We'll also explore common scenarios and... Topic Pages Health & Fitness Best of Maps & Location Explore the latest updates to MapKit. WWDC22 What's new in MapKit Come along with us as MapKit enters a new dimension. We'll show you how you can upgrade your app to use the latest map and support the highly-detailed 3D City Experience. Learn how you can visualize data using overlays while ensuring they integrate smoothly into the 3D map. We’ll also cover how... WWDC22 Meet Apple Maps Server APIs Simplify your app’s mapping architecture by implementing the Apple Maps stack across MapKit, MapKit JS, and Apple Maps Server APIs. Learn how these APIs can reduce network calls and increase power efficiency, which can help improve the overall performance of your app. We'll show you how to use... Topic Pages Maps & Location Best of ML & Vision Put machine learning to work in your app. WWDC22 What's new in Create ML Discover the latest updates to Create ML. We’ll share improvements to Create ML’s evaluation tools that can help you understand how your custom models will perform on real-world data. Learn how you can check model performance on each type of image in your test data and identify problems within... WWDC22 What's new in Vision Learn about the latest updates to Vision APIs that help your apps recognize text, detect faces and face landmarks, and implement optical flow. We’ll take you through the capabilities of optical flow for video-based apps, show you how to update your apps with revisions to the machine learning... WWDC22 Explore the machine learning development experience Learn how to bring great machine learning (ML) based experiences to your app. We'll take you through model discovery, conversion, and training and provide tips and best practices for ML. We'll share considerations to take into account as you begin your ML journey, demonstrate techniques for... Topic Pages ML & Vision Best of Photos & Camera Discover the latest in camera and photo library improvements. WWDC22 What's new in the Photos picker PHPicker provides simple and secure integration between your app and the system Photos library. Learn how SwiftUI and Transferable can help you offer integration across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS. We’ll also show you how you can use AppKit and NSOpenPanel to bring the Photos picker on Mac... WWDC22 Discover advancements in iOS camera capture: Depth, focus, and multitasking Discover how you can take advantage of advanced camera capture features in your app. We'll show you how to use the LiDAR scanner to create photo and video effects and perform accurate depth measurement. Learn how your app can use the camera for picture-in-picture or multitasking, control... WWDC22 Bring Continuity Camera to your macOS app Discover how you can use iPhone as an external camera in any Mac app with Continuity Camera. Whether you’re building video conferencing software or an experience that makes creative use of cameras, we’ll show you how you can enhance your app with automatic camera switching. We’ll also explore... Topic Pages Photos & Camera Best of Privacy & Security Learn how to create private and secure apps and games. WWDC22 What’s new in privacy At Apple, we believe that privacy is a fundamental human right, and protecting people’s privacy is at the center of everything we do. Discover how our engineering teams build privacy into all of our products and developer frameworks, and learn about the technologies and patterns you can adopt in... WWDC22 Meet passkeys It’s time for a security upgrade: Learn how to add support for passkeys to create a quick and easy sign in experience for people, all while offering a radical increase to account security. Passkeys are simple and strong credentials built to eliminate phishing attacks. We’ll share how passkeys... WWDC22 Get to know Developer Mode Meet Developer Mode — required on iOS 16, iPadOS 16, and watchOS 9 to install, run, and debug your apps during development. We'll show you how you to opt in to Developer Mode on your devices, and how to enable Developer Mode in your automation workflows. WWDC22 Replace CAPTCHAs with Private Access Tokens Don’t be captured by CAPTCHAs! Private Access Tokens are a powerful alternative that help you identify HTTP requests from legitimate devices and people without compromising their identity or personal information. We’ll show you how your app and server can take advantage of this tool to add... Topic Pages Privacy & Security Best of Safari & Web Explore the web with Safari and WebKit. WWDC22 What's new in Safari and WebKit Explore the latest features in Safari and WebKit and learn how you can make better and more powerful websites. We’ll take you on a tour through the latest updates to HTML, CSS enhancements, Web Inspector tooling, Web APIs, and more. WWDC22 Meet Web Push for Safari Bring better notifications to your websites and web apps in Safari on macOS with Web Push. We’ll show you how you can remotely send notifications to people through the web standards-based combination of Push API, Notifications API, and Service Workers. WWDC22 What’s new in Safari Web Extensions Learn how you can use the latest improvements to Safari Web Extensions to create even better experiences for people browsing the web. We'll show you how to upgrade to manifest version 3, adopt the latest APIs for Web Extensions, and sync extensions across devices. Topic Pages Safari & Web Best of Swift Discover the latest updates to Swift. WWDC22 What's new in Swift Join us for an update on Swift. We'll take you through performance improvements, explore more secure and extensible Swift packages, and share advancements in Swift concurrency. We'll also introduce you to Swift Regex, better generics, and other tools built into the language to help you write more... WWDC22 Meet Swift Async Algorithms Discover the latest open source Swift package from Apple: Swift Async Algorithms. We'll explore algorithms from this package that you can use with AsyncSequence, including zip, merge, and throttle. Follow along with us as we use these algorithms to build a great messaging app. We'll also share best... WWDC22 Meet Swift Regex Learn how you can process strings more effectively when you take advantage of Swift Regex. Come for concise literals but stay for Regex builders — a new, declarative approach to string processing. We'll also explore the Unicode models in String and share how Swift Regex can make Unicode-correct... WWDC22 Meet distributed actors in Swift Discover distributed actors — an extension of Swift’s actor model that simplifies development of distributed systems. We'll explore how distributed actor isolation and location transparency can help you avoid the accidental complexity of networking, serialization, and other transport concerns... WWDC22 Use Xcode to develop a multiplatform app Learn how you can build apps for multiple Apple platforms using Xcode 14. We'll show you how to streamline app targets, maintain a common codebase, and share settings by default. We'll also explore how you can customize your app for each platform through conditionalizing your settings and code. Best of SwiftUI & Frameworks Build interfaces that feel right at home on Apple platforms. WWDC22 What's new in SwiftUI It's a SwiftUI party — and you're invited! Join us as we share the latest updates and a glimpse into the future of UI framework design. Discover deep levels of customization, advanced techniques for layout, elegant strategies for sharing, and rock-solid structural approaches for designing an app... WWDC22 What's new in UIKit Discover the latest updates and improvements to UIKit and learn how to build better iPadOS, iOS, and Mac Catalyst apps. We’ll take you through UI refinements, productivity updates, API enhancements, and more. We’ll also help you explore improvements to performance, security, and privacy. WWDC22 What's new in AppKit Discover the latest advances in Mac app development using AppKit. We’ll take you through the latest updates to SF Symbols, show you how you can elevate your interface with enhanced controls, and help you learn to coordinate your windows with Stage Manager. We’ll also explore the latest sharing... WWDC22 Hello Swift Charts Say hello to Swift Charts — a flexible framework that helps you create charts entirely in SwiftUI that look and feel right at home on all Apple platforms. Discover how you can use compositional syntax to make informative, delightful, and accessible charts with less code. We’ll share the... WWDC22 Meet desktop-class iPad Learn how you can bring desktop-class features to your iPad app. Explore updates to UINavigationBar that bring more discoverability and customizability to your app’s features. Find out how the latest updates to UIKit can help make it easier and faster for people to explore content in your app.... Topic Pages SwiftUI & UI Frameworks Best of System Services Support your apps at the system level with networking, Core Data, CloudKit, and more. WWDC22 Enhance voice communication with Push to Talk We’re coming in loud and clear to help you bring walkie-talkie communication to your app — over! Discover how you can add prominent system UI to your Push to Talk app, enabling rapid communication with the tap of a button. We’ll introduce you to the PushToTalk framework and show you how to... WWDC22 Optimize your use of Core Data and CloudKit Join us as we explore the three parts of the development cycle that can help you optimize your Core Data and CloudKit implementation. We'll show you how you can analyze your app's architecture and feature set to verify assumptions, explore changes in behavior after ingesting large data sets, and... WWDC22 Evolve your Core Data schema Learn how you can cleanly migrate Core Data schemas after updating your app, and breeze through data model changes. We’ll show you how you can take advantage of built-in migration tools to keep your data storage up to date, and let Core Data analyze your schema to infer data model migrations.... Topic Pages System Services

  • Challenge: SwiftUI Animation Extravaganza!

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 09 Jun 2022 07:00:57 PDT

    Get your imagination ready for some high-quality visualization: We invite you to envision an animation and bring it to life using SwiftUI and Swift Playgrounds. Your animation can include text, shapes, colors, sounds, explosions, dancing cats — whatever brings you joy. You could create a visualization that melts colors across an iPad screen as you tilt the device using CoreMotion, or code an animation that responds to environmental sounds from the microphone. Maybe your animation is generated by an AI; maybe it’s manually created through custom gestures. Visit the Developer Tools Study Hall to collaborate on this challenge! Ask questions, connect with other developers, and share your creations. Begin the challenge To help get you started, check out the Animating Shapes project in Swift Playgrounds, which teaches you the basics of creating animations in SwiftUI and lets you browse a range of sample animations created using the framework. Use this as a jumping-off point for your own animation — or create a new project and start hacking from scratch. Download Swift Playgrounds for macOS Download Swift Playgrounds for iOS Learn more about Swift Playgrounds Need a bit of inspiration? Check out Animating Shapes, navigate to RollinRainbow.swift, and check out the wave effect applied across each column of a grid. Elsewhere, visit DancingDots.swift to see how you can use observable objects to animate a dynamic range of scale, color, and offset changes. To find more resources, check out "Add rich graphics to your SwiftUI app" from WWDC21 or the web tutorial "Animating Views and Transitions." And you can also explore using the SwiftUI Canvas to draw rich, dynamic graphics. Good luck! WWDC21 Add rich graphics to your SwiftUI app Learn how you can bring your graphics to life with SwiftUI. We’ll begin by working with safe areas, including the keyboard safe area, and learn how to design beautiful, edge-to-edge graphics that won’t underlap the on-screen keyboard. We’ll also explore the materials and vibrancy you can use... Animating Views and Transitions Canvas Share your SwiftUI animations on Twitter with the hashtag #WWDC22Challenges, or show off your work in the Developer Tools Study Hall. And if you’d like to discuss animation or other aspects of SwiftUI and Swift Playgrounds, join the teams at events throughout the remainder of the week at WWDC22. Explore #WWDC22Challenges on social media Read the WWDC22 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Private Access Tokens

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 09 Jun 2022 07:00:39 PDT

    Private Access Tokens are powerful tools that prove when HTTP requests are coming from legitimate devices without disclosing someone's identity. This proof can help you reduce how often you show CAPTCHAs to people. They are simple to set up and test — and so we're inviting you in this challenge to try out Private Access Tokens on your own server. Before you begin, be sure to watch "Replace CAPTCHAs with Private Access Tokens" for an overview of the feature. WWDC22 Replace CAPTCHAs with Private Access Tokens Don’t be captured by CAPTCHAs! Private Access Tokens are a powerful alternative that help you identify HTTP requests from legitimate devices and people without compromising their identity or personal information. We’ll show you how your app and server can take advantage of this tool to add... Begin the challenge It’s easy to add support for Private Access Tokens on your servers: Your server can send an HTTP authentication challenge to request clients to present a token that is signed by a token issuer you trust. You can then validate tokens using that issuer’s public key. Choose a Token Issuer https://<issuer name>/.well-known/token-issuer-directory. You can fetch one of the following URLs from your server to get the issuer information: Cloudflare — https://demo-pat.issuer.cloudflare.com/.well-known/token-issuer-directory Fastly — https://demo-issuer.private-access-tokens.fastly.com/.well-known/token-issuer-directory Learn more about Private Access Tokens and Cloudflare Learn more about Private Access Tokens and Fastly Token Challenge and Redemption To send a challenge, your server needs to post a HTTP 401 response to a request made by the client with a “WWW-Authenticate” header containing a “PrivateToken” challenge. This header contains two attributes: “challenge”, which contains a TokenChallenge structure in base64url encoding; and “token-key”, which contains a token issuer’s public key using base64url encoding. WWW-Authenticate: PrivateToken challenge=, token-key= The TokenChallenge structure contains the type of token, the hostname of the issuer, an optional context to bind to your challenge, and the hostname of your server. iOS 16 and macOS Ventura support token type 2, which uses publicly verifiable RSA Blind Signatures. struct { uint16_t token_type; // 0x0002, in network-byte order uint16_t issuer_name_length; // Issuer name length, in network-byte order char issuer_name[]; // Hostname of the token issuer uint8_t redemption_context_length; // Redemption context length (0 or 32) uint8_t redemption_context[]; // Redemption context, either 0 or 32 bytes uint16_t origin_info_length; // Origin info length, in network-byte order char origin_info[]; // Hostname of your server } TokenChallenge; Token responses come in an “Authorization” header. This contains the “token” attribute, which is a RSA Blind Signature token using base64url encoding. Use the token issuer’s public key to verify this token. Authorization: PrivateToken token= Note: When you send token challenges, don’t block the main page load. Make sure that any clients that don’t support tokens still can access your website! Adopt the "PrivateToken" HTTP authentication scheme Issuance Protocol for Publicly Verifiable Tokens Now that you know how to set up Private Access Tokens, explore sending token challenges in your own website. Test your site with clients that support Private Access Tokens — and ones that don’t! — and discover how you can make your CAPTCHAs only show for clients that don’t support Private Access Tokens. Have questions about adopting this feature? Check out our Q&A on Private Access Tokens on Thursday morning. And don't forget to share your CAPTCHA-free experiences on Twitter with the hashtag #WWDC22Challenges! Explore #WWDC22Challenges on social media Read the WWDC22 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • WWDC22 Daily Digest: Thursday

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 09 Jun 2022 07:00:28 PDT

    It's Day 4 of WWDC and a fresh round of Digital Lounges, labs, and activities awaits you. Before we kick off Thursday, catch up on yesterday's dispatch: WWDC22 WWDC22 Day 3 recap Your Day 3 status report is here. Catch up on the latest from WWDC22 and discover what's coming to a Thursday near you. Spotlight on sessions, Digital Lounges, and labs We’ve got a packed Thursday for you! Discover the latest updates to Vision, learn how to write for interfaces and collaborate with Messages, find out how to use SwiftUI with UIKit, create complications with WidgetKit, and — a WWDC first! — watch "Design for Arabic" delivered in Arabic by presenter Mohamed Samir. WWDC22 What's new in Vision Learn about the latest updates to Vision APIs that help your apps recognize text, detect faces and face landmarks, and implement optical flow. We’ll take you through the capabilities of optical flow for video-based apps, show you how to update your apps with revisions to the machine learning... WWDC22 Design for Collaboration with Messages Discover how you can design great collaboration experiences using Apple platforms. We’ll show you how to combine the Share Sheet, live editing notifications, Messages, FaceTime, and your app’s existing collaboration features to help people connect and collaborate effortlessly. (Note: API will... WWDC22 Writing for interfaces The words and phrases you choose for your app matter. Whether you’re writing an alert, building an onboarding experience, or describing an image for accessibility, learn how you can design through the lens of language and help people get the most from your app. We'll show you how to create clear,... WWDC22 Use SwiftUI with UIKit Learn how to take advantage of the power of SwiftUI in your UIKit app. Build custom UICollectionView and UITableView cells seamlessly with SwiftUI using UIHostingConfiguration. We’ll also show you how to manage data flow between UIKit and SwiftUI components within your app. To get the most out... WWDC22 Design for Arabic · صمّم بالعربي تعرّف على المبادئ الأساسية لتصميم الواجهات الرقمية باللغة العربية. سواء كنت تود تصميم تطبيق أو لعبة خصيصًا للاستخدام العربي، أو تود ترجمة تطبيق من لغة أخرى إلى... And once you're finished watching sessions for the day, join the Digital Lounges for more great Q&A from our design, photos, and Swift teams as well as live watch parties with the presenter of "Explore design navigation on iOS." Thursday is also your final day to request a lab appointment for a conversation with Apple engineers and designers. Come say hi and ask your questions! Trivia Night is back WWDC Trivia Night returns tonight at 6 p.m. PT in the Developer Tools Lounge. Put your brain to the test on such pressing questions as: What was the first supported programming language for Mac development? What’s the deal with 9:41? Come test your wits, compete with your friends and Apple staff, and suggest questions to stump the experts in the room. Where we're going, we don't need roads We're going back in time with our Thursday Throwback SwiftUI challenge! Create a SwiftUI view that reimagines your app clothed in the interfaces of the past. Dress your UI up in the grayscale style of System 6, the linen of early iPhoneOS, or another time period entirely! Visit the SwiftUI Study Hall to collaborate on the “Throwback Thursday” coding challenge. Ask questions, connect with other developers, and share your creations or on Twitter using the hashtag #WWDC22Challenges. Headphones on An immersive app doesn’t only look and feel great — it has to sound incredible, too. During WWDC, we spoke with four Apple Design Award finalists about the sensational sounds of their apps and games: the incredible and immersive soundscape app Odio; the elegant and jazz-fueled Please, Touch the Artwork; the longstanding mindfulness resource Headspace; and the gorgeous tap-along rhythm game A Musical Story. WWDC22 Sound advice Inside the sublime audio of four Apple Design Award finalists. Spin the music of WWDC And speaking of music: Give our official WWDC playlists a listen — they’re perfect if you need chill background music or a little audio kick to get you going. Listen to WWDC22 playlists on Apple Music Have fun out there, and we’ll see you tomorrow to close out WWDC22!

  • Challenge: Bindless ray tracing

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 09 Jun 2022 07:00:13 PDT

    Mirror, mirror on the ... other mirror. In this challenge, we invite you to explore bindless rendering in Metal 3 and reflect rays on mirrored surfaces. Thanks to the bindless enhancements in Metal 3, the HybridRendering sample app looks better than ever. It makes all scene resources available to its shaders using Argument Buffers, then uses Metal ray tracing to produce reflections on metallic surfaces — like the ones below. But as beautifully as the app has drawn this scene, there’s still a limitation: It’s unable to show reflections within reflections, like the mirrored floor reflecting the mirrored sphere. In fairness: It’s hard to show mirrors reflecting mirrors! Light infinitely bounces between the two surfaces, creating a situation that can’t be solved computationally. Ray tracing apps work around this issue by adding a limited number of light (or ray) “bounces” in the scene to provide more realism. In this challenge, we invite you to extend that ray tracing code and increase your image’s realism by adding one (or more) extra ray bounces. Begin the challenge Before entering this hall of mirrors, we recommend first watching "Go bindless with Metal 3." After you watch, download the "Rendering reflections in real time using ray tracing" sample code — we'll be using it for this challenge. WWDC22 Go bindless with Metal 3 Learn how you can unleash powerful rendering techniques like ray tracing when you go bindless with Metal 3. We'll show you how to make your app’s bindless journey a joy by simplifying argument buffers, allocating acceleration structures from heaps, and benefitting from the improvements to the... Rendering reflections in real time using ray tracing The app has a dedicated compute pass that calculates reflections from a thin G-Buffer containing positions and normals for each pixel in the image. The ray tracing shader reads this data and uses it with the camera’s view direction to calculate the direction of the reflected rays. It then uses Metal to trace these rays, find intersections, and shade reflections. raytracing::ray r; r.origin = positions.read(tid).xyz; r.direction = normalize(directions.read(tid).xyz); r.min_distance = 0.1; r.max_distance = FLT_MAX; raytracing::intersector<raytracing::instancing, raytracing::triangle_data> inter; inter.assume_geometry_type( raytracing::geometry_type::triangle ); auto intersection = inter.intersect( r, accelerationStructure, 0xFF ); if ( intersection.type == raytracing::intersection_type::triangle ) { // Calculate direct reflections } This produces the following image: But there’s a problem! The fire trucks are missing from the sphere’s reflection on the floor. We challenge you to reveal the missing trucks by modifying the ray tracing shader, rtReflection, to add an additional ray trace step. To complete this challenge, you’ll: Use the reflected normal and intersection position to calculate the next bounce of rays. Extract the material shading logic into a helper function that allows you to shade reflections within the reflections. Combine all reflected colors and write them into the outImage. When you’re done, use the screenshot tool, GPU Debugger, or QuickTime to capture your solution and show us your work by posting it on Twitter with the hashtag #WWDC22Challenges. And if you’d like to discuss bindless ray tracing and other Graphics & Games topics, join the team at events throughout the remainder of the week at WWDC22. Explore #WWDC22Challenges on social media Read the WWDC22 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Design for superheroic navigation

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 09 Jun 2022 07:00:13 PDT

    Calling all designers: We're inviting you to use your powers to design a "super" navigation experience for an app that helps our developer heroes fight code-tastrophes and design disasters. In this challenge, you’ll design a tab bar and screen of a fictional app to help your favorite superheroes. Whatever kind of app you decide to create, your challenge is to organize its core functionality into sections on a tab bar. Bonus: If you’re feeling super-creative, design the root screen of one of that app’s tabs. What would your heroes need to view? What actions would they take? (Note: Though you’re just designing one screen, the features designed in this view should work in harmony with the other tabs in your proposed app.) We also welcome you to visit the Design Study Hall to collaborate on this challenge! Ask questions, connect with other developers, and share your creations. Begin the challenge To get started, we recommend watching “Explore design navigation for iOS” to learn how you can take advantage of existing navigation structures to simplify complex interactions in your app without compromising its personality. Explore best practices and common pitfalls when working with tab bars, modality, and more. We also recommend checking out “Writing for interfaces” to find out more about creating clear, conversational, and helpful labels and writing in your app. WWDC22 Explore navigation design for iOS Familiar navigation patterns can help people easily explore the information within your app — and save them from unnecessary confusion. We’ll show you how to take advantage of existing navigation structures to simplify complex interactions in your app without compromising its personality. Learn... WWDC22 Writing for interfaces The words and phrases you choose for your app matter. Whether you’re writing an alert, building an onboarding experience, or describing an image for accessibility, learn how you can design through the lens of language and help people get the most from your app. We'll show you how to create clear,... Once you're ready to start designing, visit the Apple Design Resources page to download the iOS design template and get access to tab bar symbols and iOS system colors. We also recommend downloading and exploring the SF Symbols app to create compelling iconography for your tab bar. iOS apps can have between two and five tabs — so consider which features would be most relevant for the superhero app you’re designing. Don’t forget to use descriptive and succinct labels for each tab! Apple Design Resources Download SF Symbols Show us your super work by posting it on Twitter with the hashtag #WWDC22Challenges, or share your work in the Design Study Hall. And if you'd like to discuss other Design topics, join the team at events all throughout the remainder of the week at WWDC22. Explore #WWDC22Challenges on social media Read the WWDC22 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Throwback Thursday with SwiftUI

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 09 Jun 2022 07:00:06 PDT

    Ready to add some chic retro styling to your SwiftUI views? In this challenge, we're inviting you to create a SwiftUI view that reimagines your app or concept clothed in the interfaces of the past. Dress your UI up in the gorgeous grayscale of System 6, the linen of early iPhoneOS, or another time period entirely! We also welcome you to visit the SwiftUI Study Hall to collaborate on this challenge. Ask questions, connect with other developers, and share your creations. Begin the challenge To get started, pick a year, era, or color scheme. Then, snap a screen from your app and take it back to those glory days. If you need a boost (or a challenge), use a random number generator to choose a year between 1984 and 2013 — or open up a Swift Playground: print("Reimagine your app's interface like it's from the year \(myCoolRetroYear)!") let myCoolRetroYear = Int.random(in: 1984..<2013) Wherever you land, think about the Apple Design Languages prominent during that era. If you’re newer to SwiftUI, experiment with Xcode Previews to see how much code the tools will write for you. If you have more experience, take this chance to play around. (And we love a reboot: If you joined us for the original 2021 SwiftUI Throwback Challenge, feel free to resurrect your 2021 project.) Next steps Share your time-machine masterpiece on Twitter with the hashtag #WWDC22Challenges, or share your work in the SwiftUI Study Hall. And if you’d like to discuss other SwiftUI topics, join the team at events throughout the remainder of the week at WWDC22. Explore #WWDC22Challenges on social media Read the WWDC22 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Sound advice

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 09 Jun 2022 07:00:02 PDT

    An immersive app doesn’t only look and feel great — it has to sound incredible, too. During WWDC, we spoke with four Apple Design Award finalists about the sensational sounds of their apps and games. Come with us as we travel on a musical journey through cool jazz, Spatial Audio soundscapes, and even original album-length compositions from artists like Arcade Fire, St. Vincent, and Madlib. Please, Touch the Artwork: A jazz thing Thomas Waterzooi's elegant puzzle game Please, Touch the Artwork is inspired by Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, who, with his iconic style of lines, squares, and primary colors, is considered a pioneer of 20th century abstract art. And that kind of guy? He needs the right kind of music. “I tried to imagine what Mondrian would listen to while painting in his workshop,” says Waterzooi, the game’s Brussels-based developer. “Some kind of jazz. And since the game is designed to be relaxing, it would have to be a calm, dynamic kind of jazz.” That mix of timeless art and cool soundtrack creates a classy vibe in Please, Touch the Artwork, whose puzzles are based on three of Mondrian's most famous works: Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow; Broadway Boogie Woogie; and New York City I. As the puzzles grow and change, so does the music, which was created by composer Lars Burgwal. The music for the New York City section begins with only bass — and as you progress through each puzzle, the piano, saxophone, and vibraphone all come to play. (Waterzooi also added a little drum flourish whenever you tap a painting.) “With puzzle games, the music has to be relaxing," says Waterzooi. “It can't annoy you at any point.” So not so much Broadway boogie woogie for Broadway Boogie Woogie? “It would be too fast!” laughs Waterzooi. “We couldn’t swing nearly that much.” He has, however, worked in a little nod to the style. "The goal of that game is to join characters named Boogie and Woogie,” he says, “and when you do, there’s a little completion animation with a musical accent. It’s not much — just three or four notes — but it’s based on some boogie-woogie right-hand piano schemes.” Download Please, Touch the Artwork on the App Store Odio: Absolutely Spatial Audio apps don’t get much more immersive than Odio. The Apple Design Award-winning 3D audio app employs a mesmerizing mix of Spatial Audio and head tracking to conjure up its AR soundscapes. While you might flow between a rushing waterfall, the deep sea, and even a world of calming digital ambience, you’re no passive listener in these realistic realms: Each soundscape can be manipulated through a clever system of arcing sliders that reposition each sonic element — a rushing river, dreamy whalesong, or wash of digital static — around your head in 360 degrees. Max Frimout is the app's audio engineer, and though his work is heavy on synthetic, otherworldly digital elements, his audio career started with something considerably more analog. “I was originally a harpist,” he says. "One day I opened the ES1 Synthesizer in Logic Pro, and now I’m here!" Odio originally focused on nature sounds, but after a few months of development, the Netherlands-based team at Volst wanted more. “‘What if we have musicians compose their own environments?’” says Roger Kemp, co-founder and designer at Volst. “That’s when it all clicked.” Frimout is also one of the app’s five composers. A musician and DJ by trade, he began creating his Odio soundscapes with lines of melody, then layered in effects and flourishes with names like “synthetic water,” “moving chords,” and “filtered drone.” Soundscapes are built in Logic Pro and tested with AirPods Max. “That’s how I look around to hear how it feels,” he says. Most of Frimout’s compositions are the result of sonic experimentation, but the soundscape called “Wow!” followed a more organic path. “I started with a series of melodies that basically all came to me in the same evening,” he says. “I think that shows how you can have all this equipment and all these concepts but still be incredibly inspired by a single event.” And yes, it contains harp: That’s Frimout playing on the loop called Heartbreak — though you might not recognize the sound as strings. "It’s just three chordal structures,” he says with a laugh, “but they’ve been processed and processed and processed.” Download Odio from the App Store A Musical Story: That ‘70s game A Musical Story is inspired by a very groovy time: “It’s all about the freedom of ‘70s music,” says Charles Bardin, the French composer/developer who created the game with art director Alexandre Rey, composer Valentin Ducloux, and developer Maxime Constantinian. “Mostly, we were inspired by the sense that, back then, anything could happen.” Conceived in 2017 and launched in March 2022, A Musical Story is a harmonious mix of song, narrative, and art. The story follows an up-and-coming band trying to break into the business, replete with vintage guitars, outfits, and hairstyles. To move the narrative along, you tap your screen to the beat, creating some great soul- and R&B-inflected music in the process. But the game is mostly wordless, driven by the primal, powerful connection between music and memory. It’s an ideal playground for Bardin, who studied at the Conservatoire de Musique de Lyon and who’s been creating and covering game music for more than a decade. As it happens, the development process didn’t begin with the music — Bardin and Rey started by establishing the circular tap-along play mechanic. “In most games, the notes come down on the screen and you play them when they arrive,” says Bardin. “I love that, but it’s also something you can play without any sound. I wanted a game that really relies on listening.” Once the team landed on the mechanic, it was time to tune into the songs themselves. "We knew we wanted short sequences of music to unlock the story,” says Bardin, “but a lot of musical games rely on electronic or techno music, where the beat is very clear. We wanted to prove that we could make more organic music — something that wasn’t quite so thump-thump-thump-thump.” He also made sure the music drove the story along. “I wrote a song called Her for a scene in which the character goes to a pub, sees a girl playing music, and instantly falls in love with her,” says Bardin. “It begins with just a Rhodes piano and some bass and drums, but as you move closer to the stage, you hear more and more of the music. When you get close enough, you discover her face and her voice.” It’s the only time vocals appear in the game itself aside from the credits. “We wanted this moment to be powerful,” Bardin says. “This is the voice of the most important character in the game.” Download A Musical Story on the App Store Headspace: The music of mindfulness Over the past few years, the meditation and mindfulness app Headspace has partnered with A-list musical artists to help people concentrate, relax, lock in, or nod off. With Focus Music (found, appropriately, in the Focus tab), the app has amassed an array of original music and playlists from artists like Arcade Fire, St. Vincent, Erykah Badu, Madlib, and even film composer Hans Zimmer. Focus Music was designed in part by John Legend, the app’s chief music officer. “There’s so much possibility right here on our phones,” says Legend. “It can be a scary thing for some artists; it’s not what we’re used to. But if we take advantage of the possibilities, there are all these different ways to reach people.” The singer-songwriter Aluna trained in reflexology, transcendental meditation, and tai chi — all skills she wove into her hour-long Headspace composition. To create it, she designed six-minute blocks of sound, grounded in specific spaces like a crackling campfire, bustling park in late afternoon, or dripping cave. Strictly speaking, it was not her usual approach. “Normally when you write a song, you’re doing wordplay and you want dynamics,” she says. “It’s completely different from music that for an hour has no start and no finish.” (It’s also more complicated than it sounds — there’s a lot of difference between the sound of water dripping from a cave and dripping from your faucet.) The science at the intersection of music and mindfulness is clear, says UC Berkeley cognitive neuroscience professor Sahar Yousef, who partnered with Headspace on Focus Music. “We know that when we play music in rehab facilities, people improve quicker,” Yousef says. Here’s the (extremely abridged) explanation of what’s going on when you listen: Your brain forges connections via neural networks, the little zaps of electricity that constitute all your thoughts. The good news is that these networks can be manipulated, and you’re probably doing it right now. You can train yourself to think that the aroma of coffee means it’s time to wake up, and you can train your brain to recognize the music designed to chill you out. In other words, these soundscapes serve as little life hacks. “Michael Phelps listened to Eminem before every race,” says Yousef. “This is the same thing.” Download Headspace on the App Store

  • Sign up now for WWDC22 labs and lounges

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 08 Jun 2022 08:48:26 PDT

    Register for labs and Digital Lounges to connect with Apple engineers, designers, and experts online all week long. Digital Lounges A wide variety of exciting activities are happening daily on Slack. Ask questions at engineering and design Q&As. Join or follow real-time text-based conversations while watching a session video together, and stay for a short Q&A at Meet the Presenter activities. Get to know other developers and teams from Apple in a casual setting during icebreakers. Experiment with the latest frameworks, try out design concepts, participate in challenges, and share your creations in study halls. Test your trivia expertise against the best in the business on June 9. Labs Receive one-on-one guidance about development basics, complex concepts, and everything in between. Learn how to implement new Apple technologies, explore UI design principles, improve your App Store product page, and much more. Lounges and labs are open to all members of the Apple Developer Program and Apple Developer Enterprise Program, as well as 2022 Swift Student Challenge winners. Register for labs Register for lounges Learn about WWDC22

  • Challenge: Create a reactive soundscape

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 08 Jun 2022 07:05:43 PDT

    Bring on the noise: It's time for a sound design challenge! We're inviting you to experiment with creative ways to manipulate sound on iPhone and iPad using its myriad sensors, inputs, and variable states. (Think of typing on the iOS keyboard — where the key sounds get gradually quieter the faster you type.) Explore over 70 audio files from Apple sound designers and create a sonic experience of your very own! We also welcome you to visit the Design Study Hall during the day to collaborate on this challenge! Ask questions, connect with other developers and designers, and share your creations. Begin the challenge First, download our challenge sound library. In it, you’ll find more than 70 audio files from Apple sound designers, including: ChromaticScale: Includes 13 one-shot audio files that make up the musical notes of a chromatic scale. InstrumentalLoops: 155 bpm sound files that can be seamlessly looped, combined, and layered. OneShots: One-shot sounds that can be used as alerts, notifications, and more. Samples: Sustaining samples of one note each. SineLoops: Looping pad sounds formed with sine waves. Much like the InstrumentalLoops, they can be layered, added, and removed. SwitchesAndTaps: User-interface sounds. Misc: A collection of fun and inspiring sounds. Download sounds for the challenge Using any of these attached sounds and AVAudioEngine, we invite you to create a sonic on-device experience that changes based on sensor input or device state. Consider factors like touch input, motion and acceleration sensing, GPS or compass position, ambient light sensing, and camera or microphone input. Could you use touch gestures to morph a looping sound’s frequency or amplitude? Could you use a device’s motion sensor to trigger a sound — or use the accelerometer to change the relative volumes of multiple sounds triggered at once? Could you use GPS to change a notification sound based on your distance from home? If your app detected a clap through the microphone input, could it trigger a sound? Could you use the amplitude of that microphone input to determine which sound plays? Are there other variables that could be used to affect audio playback — time of day, weather, stock prices? How could these ideas impact your existing projects? For inspiration, check out the Human Interface Guidelines on creating great audio experiences, and explore Apple developer documentation. Human Interface Guidelines - Playing Audio AVAudioEngine Core Motion Core Location Nearby Interaction CMHeadphoneMotionManager Share your sonic creations on Twitter with the hashtag #WWDC22Challenges, or share your work in the Design Study Hall. And if you'd like to discuss sound design and other design topics, join the team at events all throughout the week at WWDC22. Explore #WWDC22Challenges on social media Read the WWDC22 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: SwiftUI science fiction!

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 08 Jun 2022 07:05:30 PDT

    With its robots, spaceships, and occasional brains floating in jars, science fiction is the perfect playground for a creative challenge with SwiftUI. And so we’re inviting you to conceptualize or recreate a scene from your sci-fi dreams. Whether you use floating numbers, glowing monochrome code, or something from another universe, this is your chance to build the interface of your science-fiction dreams… or nightmares! Begin the challenge Set the scene and picture the science-fiction world you want to create. Are you in the near future? Part of an underground insurgency questioning the status quo? Inside a mysterious building, known only to those who work there? Floating out by a broken moon? How would you interact with devices in this world? What sort of technology would you use? Your mission is to create a SwiftUI view in Xcode that brings that interface into our reality. For inspiration, try out SwiftUI tricks like layout and content transitions, which can help you peer through the fabric of spacetime (design-wise, at least). Next steps When you’ve finished your dystopian masterpiece, share it on Twitter with the hashtag #WWDC22Challenges, or share your work in the SwiftUI Study Hall. And if you'd like to discuss this or other SwiftUI topics, join the team at events all throughout the week at WWDC22. Explore #WWDC22Challenges on social media Read the WWDC22 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: WidgetKit workshop

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 08 Jun 2022 07:05:23 PDT

    Take a glance at this WidgetKit challenge, won't you? With glanceable experiences coming to the Lock Screen in iOS 16, it’s the perfect time to try building your very own Lock Screen widget. Begin the challenge If you’re exploring glanceable technologies for the first time, welcome! Before we get started with the challenge, check out “Complications and widgets: Reloaded” for an overview of the latest updates to WidgetKit. WWDC22 Complications and widgets: Reloaded Our widgets code-along returns as we adventure onto the watchOS and iOS Lock Screen. Learn about the latest improvements to WidgetKit that help power complex complications on watchOS and can help you create Lock Screen widgets for iPhone. We’ll show you how to incorporate the latest SwiftUI views... Once you’re ready to begin, it’s time to examine your app: What parts of it might work as a widget? After you’ve identified an aspect, explore configuration options and the best timeline for your model. If you already have a Home Screen widget, you can also explore reusing your SwiftUI code. Not every Home Screen widget is a great candidate for a Lock Screen widget, so consider different approaches to find the right one for your app. For extra credit: What happens when you deploy your code to the Apple Watch? Have you found yourself most of the way to an awesome watchOS complication? Would you make any modifications to make your experience feel at home on Watch? How will you transform your Lock Screen? Show us what you’ve made on Twitter with the hashtag #WWDC22Challenges, or share your work in the WidgetKit Study Hall. And if you'd like to chat more about WidgetKit, join the team at events all throughout the week at WWDC22. Explore #WWDC22Challenges on social media Read the WWDC22 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Draw with metal-cpp

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 08 Jun 2022 07:05:16 PDT

    Metal is the foundation for accelerated graphics and compute power on Apple platforms — and if you’re familiar with C++, now’s the perfect time to explore its incredible power. For this challenge, we're inviting you to try out metal-cpp and render your own triangle, sphere, or even a mesh in Xcode. We also welcome you to visit the Graphics & Games Study Hall during the day to collaborate on this challenge! Ask questions, connect with other developers, and share your creations. Begin the challenge Before you begin, you’ll want to watch “Program Metal in C++ with metal-cpp” and download the LearnMetalCPP project, which contains a series of C++ samples. WWDC22 Program Metal in C++ with metal-cpp Your C++ games and apps can now tap into the power of Metal. We'll show you how metal-cpp helps you bridge your C++ code to Metal, explore how each manages object lifecycles, and demonstrate utilities that can help these language cooperate in your app. We'll also share best practices for designing... Download the LearnMetalCPP project Open the project in Xcode, and choose 00-window.cpp as your base code. To render your image, you’ll need to set up a few things within your project. First, create a MTL::RenderPipelineState object with a MTL::RenderPipelineDescriptor. To do this, you’ll need to create a function, like buildShaders(). In the code snippet below, we’ve provided the shader code needed to render a single triangle. void Renderer::buildShaders() { using NS::StringEncoding::UTF8StringEncoding; const char* shaderSrc = R"( #include <metal_stdlib> using namespace metal; struct AAPLVertex { float3 position; half3 color; }; // Welcome to modify the mesh as you want constant AAPLVertex triangles[] = { { float3{ -0.8f, 0.8f, 0.0f }, half3{ 1.0, 0.3f, 0.2f } }, { float3{ 0.0f, -0.8f, 0.0f }, half3{ 0.8f, 1.0, 0.0f } }, { float3{ +0.8f, 0.8f, 0.0f }, half3{ 0.8f, 0.0f, 1.0 } } }; struct v2f { float4 position [[position]]; half3 color; }; v2f vertex vertexMain( uint vertexId [[vertex_id]]) { v2f o; o.position = float4( triangles[ vertexId ].position, 1.0 ); o.color = half3 ( triangles[ vertexId ].color ); return o; } half4 fragment fragmentMain( v2f in [[stage_in]] ) { return half4( in.color, 1.0 ); } )"; // TODO: Create a MTL::RenderPipelineDescriptor // TODO: Allocate a MTL::RenderPipelineState object } Then, extend the Renderer::draw( MTK::View* pView) function by setting a MTL::RenderPipelineState and inserting draw calls. void Renderer::draw( MTK::View* pView ) { ... // TODO: Set MTL::RenderPipelineState // TODO: Draw a single triangle or more! ... } After that: Create the MTL::RenderPipelineDescriptor object and set up some properties. Create the MTL::RenderPipelineState object. Tip: Be careful with object lifecycles. Ready to share your metal-cpp art with the community? Show us what you’ve made on Twitter with the hashtag #WWDC22Challenges, or share your work in the Graphics & Games Study Hall. And if you'd like to discuss metal-cpp and other Graphics & Games topics, join the team at events all throughout the week at WWDC22. Explore #WWDC22Challenges on social media Read the WWDC22 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Go big or go home

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 08 Jun 2022 07:05:08 PDT

    What’s better than people loving your app on iPhone? People loving your app on iPad and Mac, too! This challenge invites you to explore the ways you can expand your app’s presence in the Apple ecosystem. Explore prototyping your iPhone app for iPad, adding new desktop-class features to your iPad app, or bringing your app to macOS. Whatever it means to you, think big! We also welcome you to visit the UI Frameworks Study Hall to collaborate on this challenge! Ask questions, connect with other developers, and share your creations. Begin the challenge Before you begin this challenge, check out our sessions on creating desktop-class iPad apps. WWDC22 Meet desktop-class iPad Learn how you can bring desktop-class features to your iPad app. Explore updates to UINavigationBar that bring more discoverability and customizability to your app’s features. Find out how the latest updates to UIKit can help make it easier and faster for people to explore content in your app.... WWDC22 Build a desktop-class iPad app Discover how you can create iPad apps that take advantage of desktop class features. Join Mohammed from the UIKit team as we explore the latest navigation, collection view, menu, and editing APIs and learn best practices for building powerful iPad apps. Code along with this session in real time or... WWDC22 Adopt desktop-class editing interactions Discover advanced desktop-class editing features that can help people accelerate their productivity in your app. Learn how you can provide more interactions inline with your UI to help people quickly access editing features and make your iPadOS app feel right at home on macOS with Mac Catalyst.... If you already have an iPad app, this challenge is a great opportunity to refine it. If your iPad app is already at the top of its game, explore bringing it to Mac with Mac Catalyst — and consider the differences in the iPad and Mac idioms. Don’t have an iPad app? Take this opportunity to start prototyping one! And if you’re only on iPhone, never fear – iPhone apps on the Mac are a quick and easy way to offer your iPhone app to M1 customers, no changes needed. Tell us about the path you chose — and show us your progress! — in the UI Frameworks Study Hall. And don’t forget to show us what you’ve made on Twitter with the hashtag #WWDC22Challenges. Explore #WWDC22Challenges on social media Read the WWDC22 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Meet the WWDC22 Swift Student Challenge winners

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 08 Jun 2022 01:00:31 PDT

    In the lead-up to Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, young people from around the globe used Swift Playgrounds to showcase their coding skills as part of the Swift Student Challenge. This year, they include submissions from first-time participants Jones Mays II, Angelina Tsuboi, and Josh Tint. All three teens are harnessing the power of coding to create apps that help solve problems in their communities — and are among more than 350 students from 40 countries and regions who were selected as 2022 challenge winners. Learn more about some of the WWDC22 Swift Student Challenge winners

  • WWDC22 Daily Digest: Wednesday

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 07 Jun 2022 11:00:05 PDT

    Welcome to Wednesday at WWDC! We’re almost halfway through the week, and there’s so much still to come. But first: Let’s get the dispatch from day 2. WWDC22 WWDC22 Day 2 recap Ready for your Day 2 briefing? Catch up on all the great sessions from Tuesday and get a sneak peek at the day ahead. Spin the music of WWDC Whether you want a musical break or some bluesy background beats, you can drop the needle on the official WWDC playlists right now. Listen to WWDC22 playlists on Apple Music Spotlight on Digital Lounges and labs If you haven’t registered for Digital Lounges this week, you’re missing out on great discussions, SwiftUI watch parties, and a truly... iconic... monochrome pixel art challenge. Just a few of the fantastic pixel icons created for Tuesday’s “Pixel perfect design” challenge in the Design Lounge. But don’t fret: Even if you miss a day, you can catch up at any time this week by joining us on Slack and reading through past messages. Register for Digital Lounges And we’ve got another packed day today: Join us on Slack for live text-based watch parties of “Build a desktop-class iPad app” and “Compose custom layouts with SwiftUI,” ask questions about RoomPlan, WidgetKit, and Shortcuts, and join the Accessibility team for a community panel. We’re also hosting dedicated labs for Accessibility, CarPlay, App Intents, Design, Xcode, and much much more. Request a WWDC22 lab appointment And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! You can check out our complete schedule on the WWDC tab in the Developer app or on developer.apple.com. Meet the new Human Interface Guidelines Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) is a comprehensive resource for designers and developers looking to create great experiences across Apple platforms. Now, it’s been fully redesigned and refreshed to meet your needs — from your first sketch to the final pixel. Take a moment this Wednesday and explore the new guidelines. Articles Meet the new Human Interface Guidelines Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) is a comprehensive resource for designers and developers looking to create great experiences across Apple platforms. Now, it’s been fully redesigned and refreshed to meet your needs — from your first sketch to the final pixel. Human Interface Guidelines Sign up for a sci-fi challenge Floating numbers! Neon code screens! Expand your reality in today’s SwiftUI science fiction challenge, where you’ll create a futuristic-looking screen that will bend the very fabric of spacetime (or at least look really cool). To join, visit the SwiftUI Study Hall in the Digital Lounges, where you can also ask questions, connect with other devs, and share your progress. Ready to take on more challenges? Over in the Design lounge, we’re inviting you to put your sonic skills to good use and manipulate audio from Apple sound designers with Apple sensing frameworks. Elsewhere, you can try your hand at creating or drawing with metal-cpp, designing Lock Screen widgets with WidgetKit, and expanding your iPhone app to iPad and Mac. Have a great Wednesday — we’ll see you tomorrow for Day 4 of WWDC!

  • Meet the new Human Interface Guidelines

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 07 Jun 2022 11:00:04 PDT

    Meet the new Human Interface Guidelines Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) is a comprehensive resource for designers and developers looking to create great experiences across Apple platforms. Now, it’s been fully redesigned and refreshed to meet your needs — from your first sketch to the final pixel. Human Interface Guidelines The HIG has merged its platform-specific guidance into a unified document, making it simpler to explore common design approaches while still preserving relevant details about each platform. The overhauled navigation also helps you browse components, technologies, design patterns, and foundational principles: Larger sections include a visual index, while each individual page features links to related resources like videos, articles, and API documentation. You can also search directly within the HIG to find a specific page. And coming later this year, the HIG will sport change logs that record updates and edits as they happen — both for each updated page and for the entire set of guidelines. The Human Interface Guidelines have come a long way. The HIG is deeply rooted in the design principles Apple helped pioneer decades ago. It has a rich legacy that reaches back to the early days of the graphical user interface and is a living document that provides the latest design guidance for Apple platforms, adapting to new devices, technologies, and updates. Whether you’re just starting out or a veteran Apple developer, the HIG is a key resource for creating amazing experiences on all platforms.

  • Introducing WeatherKit

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 07 Jun 2022 10:00:23 PDT

    Bring valuable weather information to your apps and services through a wide range of data that can help people stay up to date, safe, and prepared. It’s easy to use WeatherKit in your apps with a platform-specific Swift API, and on any other platform with a REST API. Learn about WeatherKit

  • Challenge: You can build an app for that!

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 07 Jun 2022 08:30:39 PDT

    WWDC isn’t only about exploring the brand-new frameworks and APIs — it’s also an excuse to give yourself time to experiment and play with the APIs that already exist. Whether you've got a problem you've been itching to solve or you just want a blank canvas to try out an animation or view, Swift Playgrounds makes it easy to build apps and projects. And that’s what we’re inviting you to do with this challenge: play! Begin the challenge Today is all about experimentation and having fun: Download the Swift Playgrounds app on iPad or Mac and experiment with an existing framework, idea, animation, or app concept that you’ve always wanted to try but haven’t had the time to explore. Discover the tools available, incorporate packages, build prototypes, and most importantly, enjoy yourself! Download Swift Playgrounds for macOS Download Swift Playgrounds for iOS Learn more about Swift Playgrounds You can collaborate on this challenge with others in the Digital Lounges Study Hall, or explore a solo challenge. And if you have questions about the app or building your own software, you can meet the presenter behind “Build your first app in Swift Playgrounds” for a text-based conversation and short group Q&A. Make something you want to share with the world? Feel free to show it off in the Digital Lounges or on Twitter using #WWDC22Challenges. Explore #WWDC22Challenges on social media Read the WWDC22 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Toolbar transformation Tuesday

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 07 Jun 2022 08:30:39 PDT

    Move over, Taco Tuesday. This week, it’s Toolbar Transformation Tuesday! With iOS 16 and iPadOS 16, you can now adopt powerful productivity improvements in your app like customizable bar button items, inline search bars, and document menu support. So today, we're challenging you to transform your own toolbars. We also welcome you to visit the UI Frameworks Study Hall during the day to collaborate on this challenge! Ask questions, connect with other developers, and share your creations. Begin the challenge The transformation all starts with Xcode 14: download the app and and check out your existing projects within it. We also recommend watching “Meet desktop-class iPad” and “Adopt desktop-class editing interactions” from WWDC22 to explore the possibilities for your UI. WWDC22 Meet desktop-class iPad Learn how you can bring desktop-class features to your iPad app. Explore updates to UINavigationBar that bring more discoverability and customizability to your app’s features. Find out how the latest updates to UIKit can help make it easier and faster for people to explore content in your app.... WWDC22 Adopt desktop-class editing interactions Discover advanced desktop-class editing features that can help people accelerate their productivity in your app. Learn how you can provide more interactions inline with your UI to help people quickly access editing features and make your iPadOS app feel right at home on macOS with Mac Catalyst.... Begin the transformation for your app by exploring buried functionality and adding items to the center section of the toolbar. Check out all the available customization options that can make it easy for people to put the tools they need front and center. You can also try adding a title menu with UINavigationItem.titleMenuProvider to enable workflows that cover the entire document; centralize sharing and drag and drop by adopting UIDocumentProperties; and power up your searches by adding search suggestions to help people find exactly what they’ve been seeking. We’d love to check out your progress! Show us what you’ve made in the Digital Lounges or on Twitter with the hashtag #WWDC22Challenges. If you'd like to discuss toolbars and other UI frameworks topics, join the team at events all throughout the week at WWDC22. And — if you're so moved — please enjoy a taco today in celebration. Explore #WWDC22Challenges on social media Read the WWDC22 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Learn Switch Control through gaming

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 07 Jun 2022 08:30:32 PDT

    Learn more about a critical assistive technology this WWDC and solve a matching game using only Switch Control! We're inviting you to expand your skillset and familarize yourself with Switch Control, an assistive technology used by mobility-impaired individuals to help navigate and operate iOS. We'll show you how to set up a screen switch, use automatic scanning, and control the Switch Control menu system. From there, dive deeper and learn how you can customize and enhance the experience for people using Switch Control through a specific accessibility API. You can share your progress with others on this challenge in the Digital Lounges Study Hall, or explore a solo challenge. Begin the challenge To start this challenge, you'll need to first download and run the sample code project and set up Switch Control. Note: This project requires an iPhone or iPad running iOS 16 or iPadOS 16. You won't be able to to run it in Simulator. WWDC22 Challenge: Learn Switch Control through gaming Configure and enable Switch Control Switch Control is an accessibility feature that helps you interact with your device using a variety of software and hardware switches. These can be located on the screen, and can use the camera, sounds, or connected accessories. First, configure the switch you'll need for the challenge: Open the Settings app. Choose Accessibility > Switch Control > Switches. Select Add New Switch. Add a switch by navigating to Switches > Screen Switch > Full Screen. Choose Select Item. Choose your scanning time in Auto Scanning Time. The default is one second, which means the Switch Control focus will wait one second on each element before moving on to the next. You can adjust this time as you like. Alternatively, you can choose Bluetooth Devices, select a device to use as a switch, and select an action for that switch. After you’ve finished setting up your switch, you’re ready to enable Switch Control on your device. If you don’t typically use Switch Control, you can set up an Accessibility Shortcut to quickly enable or disable it for the purposes of this challenge. Here’s how: Open the Settings app. Choose Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut. Select Switch Control. Make sure this is the only enabled item in the list. You can now triple-click the Side button or Home button on your device to trigger the Accessibility Shortcut and toggle Switch Control on or off. Set up the challenge Now that you've got Switch Control enabled, it's time to explore the project. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut and select Switch Control. Download the Xcode project and run it on your iPad or iPhone. Once the app is running, you can match two boxes with the same symbol by tapping one on the screen while Switch Control is focused on a box. Then choose Tap in the Switch Control menu. Then, select the other matching item. Repeat until all icons have been exposed to solve the challenge! Figured out the puzzle? Post your accomplishment on Twitter with the hashtag #WWDC22Challenges. And if you'd like to discuss Switch Control and other accessibility topics, join the team at events all throughout the week at WWDC22. Topic Pages Accessibility & Inclusion Explore #WWDC22Challenges on social media Read the WWDC22 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Pixel perfect design

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 07 Jun 2022 08:30:08 PDT

    Ready to show off your pixel perfect design skills? We're challenging you to embrace the constraints of a grid and design an app icon at pixel level using only black and white colors. When we design icons today, we create work for high-resolution HDR screens, with millions of pixels and color at our disposal. But there’s joy in embracing a bit of retro restraint: pixel grids can help you distill the essence of your design and make sure your icon is clear and understandable at all sizes. Challenge yourself to embrace constraints and design an app icon using only black and white colors on a 48x48 pixel grid. Pixel icons have a rich history on the Mac. MacPaint was a raster graphics editor released as part of the original Macintosh in 1984, and its icons were playful, simple and recognizable to people around the world. Many of the defining icons for modern drawing and design tools – such as the paint brush, lasso, and hand tool – were originally created for MacPaint by Susan Kare, one of the original designers for the Mac. App icons for MacPaint, MacDraw, and MacWrite, originally created by Mac designer Susan Kare. Kare designed these icons with the monochromatic limits of the first Mac display in mind, using a grid-lined notebook to map out each pixel. While we’re no longer limited by hardware, you can explore those same design principles to help you create fun, interesting, and visually stunning icons. Begin the challenge We’re inviting you to create an app icon at pixel level using only black and white colors on a 48×48 pixel, 32×32 pixel, or 16×16 pixel canvas. You may design for every size, for two sizes, or just one size. You can draw your icon on paper or using your favorite program; we’ve also provided a pixel grid for download. Download a pixel grid for the challenge Before you start drawing on the canvas, think about your goal: Are you designing a brand new app icon, or recreating something that already exists? Once you’ve decided, explore a single element that captures the essence of the app, and express that element in a simple, unique shape. For example, the Mail app icon uses an envelope, which is universally associated with mail. Add details cautiously. If the content or shape is overly complex, details can be hard to discern. Icons at all three sizes should generally match in appearance, although you can explore subtle, richer, or more detailed additions at 48×48 pixel size. Explore #WWDC22Challenges on social media Read the WWDC22 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: SwiftUI navigation hotdish

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 07 Jun 2022 08:30:04 PDT

    What’s piping hot, golden-crusted, and filled with mystery ingredients? A divine hotdish, you betcha! But this SwiftUI challenge doesn’t involve tater tots or cream of mushroom soup; in fact, we’re inviting you to throw away the recipe book and mix up your own ingredients for a new kind of navigation supper. Prep your ChallengeContentView to create a hotdish of your own, mixing together SwiftUI navigation ingredients like stack view, multicolumn layout, and state restoration. Begin the challenge Before you become a SwiftUI hotdish chef, it’s important to understand the techniques behind a variety of recipes. Make sure to watch The SwiftUI Cookbook for Navigation from WWDC22 to get started on your culinary adventure. WWDC22 The SwiftUI cookbook for navigation The recipe for a great app begins with a clear and robust navigation structure. Join the SwiftUI team in our proverbial coding kitchen and learn how you can cook up a great experience for your app. We’ll introduce you to SwiftUI’s navigation stack and split view features, show you how you can... For this dish, you’ll be cooking with the “Bringing robust navigation structure to your SwiftUI app” sample code. Download it to your device to start the challenge. Bringing robust navigation structure to your SwiftUI app You can get a feel for your SwiftUI ingredients by exploring and modifying StackContentView, TwoColumnContentView, or ThreeColumnContentView in the project. Once you’re feeling ready, head to the ChallengeContentView, where you can mix and match any navigation ingredients you might need to craft a prize-winning hotdish! (You can even pick up a few new APIs from “What’s new in SwiftUI” to add some spice to your meal.) Incorporate your own app’s ingredients and voila! You’ve got a secret recipe for the ages.  WWDC22 What's new in SwiftUI It's a SwiftUI party — and you're invited! Join us as we share the latest updates and a glimpse into the future of UI framework design. Discover deep levels of customization, advanced techniques for layout, elegant strategies for sharing, and rock-solid structural approaches for designing an app... Explore #WWDC22Challenges on social media Read the WWDC22 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • WWDC22 Daily Digest: Tuesday

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 07 Jun 2022 07:00:18 PDT

    We've been waiting all year to say it: WWDC is here! And after a packed day 1, we’re ready to get down to business — it's time to check out the new sessions, labs, and Digital Lounges. Here's a brief day 1 rundown along with some highlights to get excited about. Revisit a very big Day 1 Want to catch up on Monday’s excitement? Your mission is to watch the official debrief, where you’ll find out about the exciting announcements and new technologies unveiled at WWDC22 — and learn more about what’s in store for the rest of the week. WWDC22 WWDC22 Day 1 recap It's time for your Day 1 report from Apple HQ. Check out all the exciting announcements and new technologies unveiled at WWDC22 — and learn more about what's coming tomorrow. Have a bit more time on your hands? Check out full replays of Keynote, Platforms State of the Union, and the Apple Design Awards. Watch the Keynote Watch the Platforms State of the Union Watch the Apple Design Awards Welcome to the Developer Center and Apple Park On the eve of WWDC, we invited developers to the new Apple Developer Center — a world-class facility designed for our worldwide community to meet, learn from, and collaborate with Apple — and then over to Apple Park to take in screenings of Keynote “Being in a space like this gives you chills,” said Vitalii Mogylevets, creator of the Apple Design Award-nominated Waterllama. “It feels like you’re a part of something really big.” Check out these pictures from an incredible day. Celebrate the winners of the Apple Design Awards 12 apps and games became Apple Design Award winners on Monday, winning in categories like Inclusivity, Delight and Fun, Interaction, Social Impact, Visuals and Graphics, and Innovation. “We couldn’t believe it,” says Charles Bardin, creator of A Musical Story, which won for innovation in games. “We thought, 'OK, we’re very small, we’re just happy to be here.' But it means a lot that a big company recognizes our work.” For others, it meant a validation of years of effort. “When we won, I was thinking, ‘I wish the whole team could be here,” said Amanda Schofield, co-founder and and creative director at Studio Drydock, which won for its game Wylde Flowers. “Every single person put everything they had into it.” Missed the Apple Design Awards? Read more about each winner on the Apple Developer website. Explore the winners of the WWDC22 Apple Design Awards Explore the Digital Lounges and labs It’s a packed first day of Digital Lounges and labs. Don’t miss a few favorites: Design labs are open all week — request an appointment for a conversation about the latest design principles, best practices, design patterns, and more. Meet the team behind “What’s New in SwiftUI” and join a text-based watch party for the session, followed by a short Q&A. Meet the Accessibility team in an icebreaker session where you chat about your favorite WWDC moments and share tips and tricks. Meet the presenter of “Bring Continuity Camera to Your macOS app,” and stick around after for a short Q&A. And that’s just for starters. Tune in to the WWDC jukebox The WWDC playlists are here! Spin up WWDC22 playlists for the perfect soundtrack to your day — no matter what kind of day it might be. Find official curated mixes to help you Power Up, Focus, Chill, and Energy. Listen to WWDC22 playlists on Apple Music Have fun out there, and we’ll see you tomorrow for Day 3!

  • Apple Design Award winners announced

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 06 Jun 2022 16:00:50 PDT

    The Apple Design Awards celebrate apps and games that excel in the categories of Inclusivity, Delight and Fun, Interaction, Social Impact, Visuals and Graphics, and Innovation. Learn about the winning apps and the talented developers behind them. Discover the winners

  • Watch the Apple Design Awards

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 06 Jun 2022 14:00:45 PDT

    The Apple Design Awards honors excellence in innovation, ingenuity, and technical achievement in app and game design. Watch along as we reveal and celebrate the 2022 winners. WWDC22 Apple Design Awards The Apple Design Awards honors excellence in innovation, ingenuity, and technical achievement in app and game design. Watch along as we reveal and celebrate the 2022 winners. WWDC22 Apple Design Awards (ASL) The Apple Design Awards honors excellence in innovation, ingenuity, and technical achievement in app and game design. Watch along as we reveal and celebrate the 2022 winners.

  • Xcode Cloud now available

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 06 Jun 2022 12:29:23 PDT

    Xcode Cloud is a continuous integration and delivery service built into Xcode and designed expressly for Apple developers. It accelerates the development and delivery of high-quality apps by bringing together cloud-based tools that help you build apps, run automated tests in parallel, deliver apps to testers, and view and manage user feedback. This service is now available for all Apple Developer Program members. Learn about Xcode Cloud

  • Xcode 14 beta now available

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 06 Jun 2022 12:28:28 PDT

    Get the Xcode 14 beta, which includes SDKs for all Apple platforms. Leverage the simplicity and power of Swift and SwiftUI with a new multiplatform app experience, code faster with enhanced editor features, and start testing and deploying from Xcode Cloud to TestFlight and the App Store. Download Xcode 14 beta

  • WWDC22 session and topic tags now available

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 06 Jun 2022 12:27:54 PDT

    You can now connect on the Apple Developer Forums through WWDC22 tags specific to sessions and topics. Learn more

  • Find out what’s new for Apple developers

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 06 Jun 2022 11:58:34 PDT

    The latest exciting advancements in iOS 16, iPadOS 16, macOS 13, tvOS 16, and watchOS 9 help you create powerful new experiences. Your apps can deliver information in new ways, make it easier for people to share your content, offer more intelligent features, improve productivity, and so much more. Learn about what's new

  • Get ready for Developer Mode

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 06 Jun 2022 11:57:15 PDT

    Developer Mode protects people from inadvertently installing potentially harmful software on their devices, and reduces attack vectors exposed by developer-only functionality. Make sure to enable Developer Mode on your device when testing apps on iOS 16, iPadOS 16, or watchOS 9 or later, so you can grant permission to run locally-installed apps on these platforms. Learn more

  • Updated agreements and guidelines now available

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 06 Jun 2022 11:54:24 PDT

    The Apple Developer Program License Agreement and the App Store Review Guidelines have been updated to support new features in upcoming OS releases, better protect users, and help your apps go through the review process as smoothly as possible. Please review the changes below and accept the updated terms as needed. App Store Review Guidelines 2.5.4: Deleted requirement that apps using location background mode include a reminder that doing so may dramatically decrease battery life. 4.2.3: Deleted requirement to include sufficient content in the binary for the app to function at launch. 4.7: Deleted restriction on lotteries or charitable donations in code that is not embedded in the binary. 5.2.5: If your app displays Apple Weather data, it should follow the attribution requirements provided in the WeatherKit documentation. 5.3.3: Deleted restriction on purchasing lottery or raffle tickets or initiating fund transfers in the app. View the App Store Review Guidelines Program License Agreement Definitions: Clarified where to find user limits for TestFlight. Definitions and Sections 3.3.13, 3.3.17, Attachment 6: Specified requirements for use of the Apple Maps Server API. Definitions and Sections 3.3.53: Specified requirements for use of the Roster API. Definitions and Sections 3.3.54: Specified requirements for use of Sign In with Apple at Work & School. Definitions and Sections 3.3.58, 3.3.59: Specified requirements for use of the Tap to Pay APIs. Definitions and Sections 3.3.60: Specified requirements for use of the BackgroundAssets Framework. Definitions and Sections 3.3.61, Attachment 8: Specified requirements for use of the WeatherKit APIs. Section 3.3.43: Specified requirements for use of the Apple Pay APIs with WKWebView. Section 3.3.9: Clarified language on data collection. Section 3.3.12: Updated terminology on tracking preferences. Section 3.3.56: Clarified terms regarding use of Xcode Cloud. Section 11.3: Updated survival provisions to add Attachment 8 and encompass all of section 3.2. Section 14.10: Updated arbitration language for international, intergovernmental organizations that are immune from litigation. Attachment 2: Updated language on rental of content, and on sending purchase consumption information. Attachment 9: Specified terms for subscriptions purchased through the Apple Developer app. Review the updated Program License Agreement

  • System Services

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 06 Jun 2022 11:00:49 PDT

  • System Services

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 06 Jun 2022 11:00:49 PDT

  • Get the most out of WWDC22

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 06 Jun 2022 11:00:29 PDT

    WWDC22 is all-online and bigger than ever. With so much to watch, explore, and interact with throughout the week, it’s helpful to have a place to start. Here’s everything you need to know to get the most out of your week. Watch Keynote, Platforms State of the Union, and Apple Design Awards Keynote offers an in-depth look at the future of Apple platforms, beginning at 10 a.m. PT on June 6. Watch the Keynote Platforms State of the Union kicks off at 1 p.m. PT and dives deeper into the latest tools, technologies, and advances across Apple platforms. Watch the Platforms State of the Union The Apple Design Awards celebrate apps and games that excel in the categories of Inclusivity, Delight and Fun, Interaction, Social Impact, Visuals and Graphics, and Innovation. Watch the film and discover the winners at 5 p.m. PT. Watch the Apple Design Awards Browse WWDC22 The Developer app is the best place to explore every aspect of the conference. Check the Discover tab daily for the latest news, announcements, and community stories, and explore the WWDC tab to find a complete schedule of sessions, labs, Digital Lounges activities, and Coding & Design Challenges. You can bookmark sessions you’re interested in watching, register for Digital Lounges, request lab appointments, and more. Tip: Enable notifications in the Developer app to get updates about new videos, labs, Digital Lounges activities, and more. Start your morning on the WWDC tab with the WWDC Daily Digest — your at-a-glance report. New videos also arrive each morning, with labs and Digital Lounges activities happening throughout the day. Want to know what’s happening in Design, SwiftUI, or another topic? Check out our dedicated areas to browse videos, labs, Digital Lounges, and collections on those specific subjects. And if you're new to WWDC or Apple development, check out the Coding & Design Essentials topic area, which features all the content you’ll need to get started with our latest frameworks and APIs. Topic Pages Coding & Design Essentials Explore labs and Digital Lounges There are more ways than ever to connect with Apple engineers, designers, and experts online at WWDC. Labs Articles Explore developer labs at WWDC22 Whether you have a question about a new API, want design guidance, have a question for the App Store Review team, or simply want to understand a bit more about a technology, WWDC developer labs are a great opportunity to connect one-on-one with Apple engineers, designers, and specialists. Digital Lounges Digital Lounges are also a great place for community, featuring live text-based watch parties with the presenters, conversations with engineering and design teams, and daily coding and design challenges. Articles Get the most out of Digital Lounges at WWDC22 Whether this is your first time participating in Digital Lounges or you’re a returning pro, here’s what you need to know to help you make the most of your week. Apple Developer Forums Articles Discover the Apple Developer forums The Apple Developer Forums are a great place to discuss and share information about all Apple platforms. Challenge yourself Want to experiment with the latest frameworks or explore a new design concept? Coding and design challenges are returning for WWDC22! Browse daily challenges in the Developer app or on developer.apple.com, and join all-day Study Halls in Digital Lounges to collaborate on projects with others and share your progress. Don’t forget to share your creations using #WWDC22Challenges! Get inspired with some of the challenges from WWDC21: WWDC21 Coding & Design Challenges Discover fun, interactive ways to learn about the latest technologies and frameworks. Dive into documentation Find the latest updates to documentation on the Apple Developer Documentation website, where you can learn more about recent API documentation, featured tutorials, and other development resources. The website also offers quick links to the latest sample code, new technologies announced at WWDC, and the latest release notes to help you find out about known issues and workarounds for Apple platforms and tools. Articles Find the right documentation Want to learn more about implementing WidgetKit or exploring SwfitUI? Apple Developer Documentation offers resources, sample code, and articles that support the latest frameworks and technologies. Get beta ready With exciting updates to Apple tools, technologies, and platforms right around the corner, take the time now to re-familiarize yourself with a few tips and strategies for working with beta software, filing great bug reports, and enhancing those reports with debug profiles and logging. Articles How to test your app on beta software Apple regularly provides platform updates to add new features, fix bugs, and continue to improve the experience for everyone who uses our products. As part of that process, we offer beta software for developers as well as a Public Beta Software Program. This lets developers test apps on upcoming... Articles How to file great bug reports Bugs are an inevitable part of the development process. Though they can be frustrating to bump up against, you can help squash these sorts of problems quickly by identifying the issue you’re running into, reproducing it, and filing a bug report. Here are some of our top tips for making sure your... Articles Enhance bug reports with debug profiles and logging When you file bug reports through Apple’s Feedback Assistant, you’re helping flag issues, improve our platforms, and make the experience better for developers and customers alike. Learn more about Feedback Assistant

  • Get the most out of Digital Lounges at WWDC22

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 06 Jun 2022 11:00:26 PDT

    Digital Lounges are back for WWDC22! Starting June 7, Apple engineers and designers will be hosting text-based Q&As, watch parties, and community events across more than 15 topics. Whether this is your first time participating in Digital Lounges or you’re returning for year two, here’s what you need to know to help you make the most of your week. Register for Digital Lounges You can now register for Digital Lounges to automatically gain access to activities you’re interested in attending — choose from topics like Design, SwiftUI, Developer Tools, Machine Learning, and more. To provide the best experience for everyone, space is limited for each topic, and registering early is the best way to guarantee access to your preferred topics and activities. Register for Digital Lounges You can register for Digital Lounges if you’re a current member of the Apple Developer Program, Apple Developer Enterprise Program, or a WWDC22 Swift Student Challenge winner. To register, sign in with your Apple ID, choose one or more topics, and enter your information. We want to make sure these spaces are helpful and welcoming for everyone — developers and Apple employees alike — and we ask all attendees during registration to review and follow the WWDC22 Interactive Events Policy. Read the WWDC22 Interactive Events Policy Once your initial registration is processed, you’ll receive an email with more details on participating and a link to access Digital Lounges. Browse the schedule You can browse the full list of Digital Lounge activities from the WWDC tab of the Developer app or on developer.apple.com and add them to your personal calendar. With more than 100 activities available to try throughout the week, here are a few tips: Engineering and design Q&As are a great opportunity to submit questions and learn from Apple engineers and designers in a group setting. Whether you have a burning query about the latest frameworks or you want to sit back and learn from others’ questions, Q&As have something for everyone. Fun fact: Meet the Presenter activities aren’t just a Q&A with the session presenters — they also include live watch parties! You can join or follow along with real-time text conversation as everyone watches the session, followed by a short Q&A. (Presenters begin the live rewatch at 5 minutes after the activity begins, so don’t be late!) For some community connection, check out icebreakers throughout the week to get to know your fellow developers as well as the people behind teams like Accessibility, Design, Games, SwiftUI, and more. Trivia Night returns to the Developer Tools Digital Lounge on Thursday at 6 p.m. PT. Get ready to test your expertise against the best in the business (and claim some bragging rights). Want to experiment with the latest frameworks during WWDC or try out a new design concept? Check out the Study Halls throughout the week to participate in coding and design challenges, collaborate with other developers, and share your creations. Spot an activity you want to attend but didn’t pre-register for that topic? You can register for additional topics at any time through June 10 as space allows. Participate in activities Digital Lounges kick off bright and early on June 7 at 8 a.m. PT, with activities happening each day through June 10. We’re hosting all activities in Slack — so make sure you’ve completed the registration process and downloaded the Slack app on your platform of choice before activities begin. Download Slack for Mac Download Slack for iPhone and iPad After you register for a topic, you’ll gain access to all channels within that topic. You can switch channels at any time from the Slack sidebar; you can also open a specific activity directly from the schedule in the Developer app or on developer.apple.com. To ensure we can find and answer your question during an activity, new messages can only be posted in channels while an activity is in session. At the beginning of each activity, our moderators will unlock the channel and — depending on the activity — welcome you to start posting inside the channel, in threads, or through our “Ask a question” submission form. Have a question? Ask the help desk Having trouble accessing a channel or need some assistance? After you’ve registered you’ll gain access to the Help Desk channel, which can help you with any questions you might have about Digital Lounges during WWDC22. Additionally, if you have a concern about a specific post during an activity, you can use the “Flag a message” button to alert the Digital Lounges moderation team.

  • Watch the Platforms State of the Union

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 06 Jun 2022 11:00:16 PDT

    Take a deeper dive into the latest tools, technologies, and advances across Apple platforms to help you create even better apps WWDC22 Platforms State of the Union Take a deeper dive into the latest tools, technologies, and advances across Apple platforms to help you create even better apps. WWDC22 Platforms State of the Union (ASL) Take a deeper dive into the latest tools, technologies, and advances across Apple platforms to help you create even better apps.

  • Find the right documentation

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 06 Jun 2022 11:00:16 PDT

    Want to learn more about implementing WidgetKit or exploring SwfitUI? Apple Developer Documentation offers resources, sample code, and articles that support the latest frameworks and technologies. Explore the latest and greatest Visit the Apple Developer Documentation website to learn about recent API documentation, featured tutorials, and other development resources. The website also offers quick links to sample code projects, new technologies announced at WWDC, and release notes that help you find out about known issues and workarounds for Apple platforms and tools. Apple Developer Documentation New Technologies WWDC22 Browse the latest sample code Browse better The Documentation Technologies page provides a concise overview of every framework, technology, and service on Apple platforms. By default, they’re organized alphabetically, and you can easily filter down to see just the ones you need. Here are some tips to help you find the right information, faster: Use keywords: To quickly locate a specific framework or technology, enter a keyword in the Filter field or select a suggested tag. For example, type “watch” and select the “Apple Watch” tag to see all Watch-related frameworks. For more precise filtering, enter multiple keywords or select multiple tags. Dive deeper: Once you've selected something, the navigator helps you browse documentation and find APIs easily. Click the disclosure indicators to explore different levels of the API hierarchy and type in API names to find those pages quickly. Use tags to filter results to show just sample code, tutorials, or articles. You can even hide deprecated pages. See what’s changed: The API Changes dropdown shows all frameworks with new, modified, and deprecated information. It’s a great resource for comparing the SDKs in the latest version of Xcode with older versions. When API Changes is set to "Show," the navigator shows a filterable list of added, modified, and deprecated APIs. Toggle between Swift and Objective-C: Use the Language selector at the top of a documentation page in a Swift/Objective-C framework to switch between languages.

  • Watch the Keynote

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 06 Jun 2022 03:00:00 PDT

    The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off with exciting reveals, inspiration, and new opportunities. Join the worldwide developer community for an in-depth look at the future of Apple platforms, directly from Apple Park. WWDC22 Keynote The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off with exciting reveals, inspiration, and new opportunities. Join the worldwide developer community for an in-depth look at the future of Apple platforms, directly from Apple Park. WWDC22 Keynote (ASL) The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off with exciting reveals, inspiration, and new opportunities. Join the worldwide developer community for an in-depth look at the future of Apple platforms, directly from Apple Park.

  • Discover the Apple Developer forums

    Apple Developer News · Sat, 04 Jun 2022 08:00:13 PDT

    The Apple Developer Forums are a great place to discuss and share information about all Apple platforms. You can use the forums to interact with the community and explore the latest technologies and frameworks. Here are some tips to getting the most out of your time in the forums. Visit the Apple Developer Forums Learn more about the Apple Developer Forums Personalize your profile While anyone can browse the forums, you’ll need to sign in with your Apple ID to ask or answer questions. Once a post has been approved, the community can rank and promote it. Moderators may review posts to ensure a safe and secure platform. Customize your profile with a preset avatar, location (if you choose), and links to your apps on the App Store. You can also personalize your homepage with the tags and threads you’re most interested in. Just follow a few simple steps: Sign into your account. Go to your profile silhouette in the upper right corner of the screen. Click or tap on your silhouette. Click or tap Edit Profile. From there, you can change whatever you’d like to change, as well as choose to show information like how long you’ve been on the forums. Post like a pro Ready to ask a question or share your insights? Here are some easy ways to maximize your post: Provide crucial context: When posting a question, provide as much background as possible. Try to mention any relevant limitations, assumptions, or simplifications. If possible, add an image or visual aid. If you need to make a quick fix, no worries: You can edit your post for up to 30 minutes after posting. Attach a log: Log content can add valuable additional context to your post. To add log content, click or tap on the attachment icon in the text editor. Then add a title, paste your log content, and click Add Text. Mark it down: Take advantage of Markdown to quickly and easily style your text with headers, ordered and unordered lists, bold and italic text, links, code and syntax highlighting, blockquotes, and more. Share and share alike: Share an original post or reply with the Share button, which can be found inline to the right of the post. Accept your answers: If you get a great answer to your question, be sure to mark it as “accepted.” You can only mark one reply as solved, and it can’t be unmarked. (Please note you can’t solve your own question!) Maximize tags The forums are organized by tags: When someone asks a new question, they can add up to four tags to help categorize their post. If you have a question about building watchOS apps with SwiftUI, for example, you might tag that post SwiftUI and watchOS, and people searching either topic would get it in their search results. Tags are listed on every post in the forums: You can view all of the most recent questions filed under a given tag by clicking or tapping on it — as well as check out any relevant technical documentation or information for that tag. You can also subscribe to an RSS feed for any tag. See all available tags on the forums Help solve problems Ready to help out? Reply to any post with your suggested solution. If the original author finds it useful, they can mark the question Answered — and get you reputation points. (More on those below.) If an Apple staff member agrees, they may promote your answer to Apple Recommended — and net you even more reputation. When viewing threads, you can spot Apple Recommended answers along the left side of the screen; they’re represented with a black circular logo with the Apple icon inside it. Improve your reputation Participating in threads and constructively providing answers helps you gain points and privileges. Your profile shows the number of Accepted answers you’ve provided; if an answer has been promoted to Apple Recommended, you’ll receive that badge on your profile as well. You can report posts for being duplicates or spam, and you can downvote questions or replies. While on the forums, you can gain points by: Providing an answer marked as Apple Recommended: 25 points Providing a reply marked as Answered by the author: 15 points Asking a question that gets upvoted: 5 points Providing a reply that gets upvoted: 5 points You can lose points by: Having an upvote for your question or reply rescinded: -5 points Providing a question or reply that gets downvoted: -2 points Posting spam or inappropriate/abusive content that gets removed: -15 Search swiftly Use the powerful and versatile search bar to quickly find information and people in the forums. You can search by keyboard, tag, or a combination of the two. Keyword search: Type in a word that’s three characters or longer and hit return to get question titles or descriptions related to the word (or words) you’ve typed. Tag search: Want to search for a tag? Type it in brackets, like so: [mac] This query will return information on tags with the word “mac” in them. Type in the name of a specific tag, and you’ll go straight to the tag’s landing page, which contains a brief description of the tag and a list of recently tagged questions. Combination searches: If you know the name of a specific tag or multiple tags, you can combine them with a keyword to further refine your search. For example: [macOS][Beta] Catalyst This search will return all questions that have “Catalyst” in their title or description and are tagged with both “macOS” and “Beta.” Categories: Not sure which tags to search? Categories group tags together to aid discoverability. Save it for later: Want to keep tabs on a conversation even after you leave your web browser? You can watch threads and get notified via email when people post new replies to the thread. Find a person: Want to take a look at someone’s profile? Use the following: user:username Replace “username” with the person’s username that you’re looking for to get a list of matching people (or, if you’ve entered an exact match, you’ll visit that person’s profile). Follow WWDC Posts tagged WWDC can be viewed by anyone. Share your thoughts on the conference by using the WWDC22 Community tag, or request help with conference logistics by using the WWDC22 Support tag. Send us your feedback We’d love to hear from you! Send feedback through Apple Developer Support or by creating a post and adding the Forums Feedback tag.

  • Explore developer labs at WWDC22

    Apple Developer News · Sat, 04 Jun 2022 08:00:07 PDT

    Whether you have a question about a new API, want design guidance, have a question for the App Store Review team, or simply want to understand a bit more about a technology, WWDC developer labs are a great opportunity to connect one-on-one with Apple engineers, designers, and specialists. If this is your first time requesting an online lab — or you want to brush up on the process — here are a few tips and tricks to help you get the most out of your WWDC week. Who should request a lab appointment? Anyone who wants to chat with us — no matter your skill level or the complexity of your question. Requests are open to all current members of the Apple Developer Program and the Apple Developer Enterprise Program, as well as our WWDC22 Swift Student Challenge winners. We offer labs on all major technologies and frameworks along with dedicated time for design reviews, App Store consultations, and open hours with Developer Technical Support. If you’re unsure whether your question merits a dedicated conversation — please consider applying anyway! We want to hear from you. Even if we can’t accommodate your request, it can help our staff better understand the developer community’s overall needs and questions. Feel more comfortable asking questions of Apple engineers and designers in a community setting? WWDC22’s Digital Lounges offer text-based group Q&As with engineering and design teams all week long. These events focus on answering more general questions about the latest technologies and frameworks in addition to providing insights and best practices. If you have questions about how an API specifically affects your app, lab appointments remain the best way to get guidance in that area. Articles Get the most out of Digital Lounges at WWDC22 Whether this is your first time participating in Digital Lounges or you’re a returning pro, here’s what you need to know to help you make the most of your week. Browse lab appointments The complete labs schedule will be available on the WWDC tab from the Developer app or on developer.apple.com immediately after the Keynote on Monday, June 6. To browse the schedule, sign into the Developer app with the Apple ID associated with your Apple Developer Program membership. At this time, you can also start requesting appointments for technology labs, App Store consultations, and open hours. Lab requests remain open through 6 p.m. PDT the day prior to the lab, and you may apply for as many labs as you like. Appointment requests for design labs follow the same schedule, but are limited to one appointment request per day and one confirmed appointment for the duration of the conference. Please note that cancelling a confirmed appointment will not allow you to request another design lab appointment. Request a lab appointment To request a lab appointment, double-check that you’re signed into the Developer app or developer.apple.com with the Apple ID associated with your Apple Developer Program membership. From there, select the labs you wish to attend, add information on what you’d like to chat about, and press Submit. If you’ve filed a related report using Feedback Assistant, please include the Feedback ID in your submission. We review all lab requests to better connect developers with appropriate contacts. Please note labs have limited capacity. You’ll receive an email at 10 p.m. PDT the night before the lab to let you know the status of your request. If you don’t receive an appointment, you can submit a request on another day. Though we may not be able to accommodate every appointment, we welcome you to connect with Apple staff in Digital Lounges as well as on the Apple Developer Forums. Articles Discover the Apple Developer forums The Apple Developer Forums are a great place to discuss and share information about all Apple platforms. Get ready for your lab appointment No matter what you want to discuss, we encourage preparing for your appointment by watching the latest session videos on topics you’re interested in, jotting down notes about what you’d like to discuss, and making sure you have any code, design wireframes, or other visual aids ready to share. We look forward to chatting with you in the labs!

  • How to test your app on beta software

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 02 Jun 2022 09:00:59 PDT

    Apple regularly provides platform updates to add new features, fix bugs, and continue to improve the experience for everyone who uses our products. As part of that process, we offer beta software for developers — as well as a Public Beta Software Program — so that people can test their apps against upcoming software updates, address pesky bugs, and share feedback with Apple about upcoming changes and improvements. Download the latest developer beta software Apple Beta Software Program While we encourage people to only install beta software on secondary devices, you may still find that some of your customers want to run your app while using a beta version of an operating system. We’ve put together a few recommendations to help you test and troubleshoot your apps when they’re running in a beta environment, collect actionable feedback from people, and provide feedback of your own. Test early, test often Once a new beta is released, we recommend downloading and running it on development devices as soon as possible so that you can test it against your existing apps. Not only does this let you confirm that your app functions properly, it also puts you in a great position to explore the latest platform APIs and features. The earlier you test, the earlier you can identify possible bugs, issues, or regressions and flag them to Apple engineers. It’s also your best opportunity to register feedback about new features and influence future operating system updates. Triage the trouble Sometimes, changes to frameworks in an early beta may seriously affect your app. This is never a great feeling, but don’t panic! Chances are, many of your fellow developers are in the same position. To start addressing the problem, first do a bit of triage to identify what’s going on. Is it a system issue? Is it a latent bug in your own code? Isolate your issue by creating a minimally reproducible case in a new Xcode project. When you focus on the code that causes the bug, you can make the problem easier to troubleshoot — and it also saves you from attaching your entire app project to a feedback submission. If a beta does reveal an existing bug in your code, you may be able to fix it immediately and provide an update that makes your app more stable for both the current release and future releases. Sometimes you may be able to isolate the code in such a way that you can also reproduce the issue on currently-released software. If that’s the case and if you need help fixing it, submit a Technical Support Incident for code-level support. If an issue with the beta itself is preventing you from providing a fix, it’s time to file feedback. Even if you believe others have filed this bug before, you should always send in a report: Your reproduction steps and data could be the key that unlocks the problem — or pushes the issue to a higher level of prioritization. Articles How to file great bug reports Bugs are an inevitable part of the development process. Though they can be frustrating to bump up against, you can help squash these sorts of problems quickly by identifying the issue you’re running into, reproducing it, and filing a bug report. Here are some of our top tips for making sure your... Submit feedback Amidst all the work you’re already doing on your app, you may be tempted to post a blanket statement to your website or within your app that you aren’t providing support for people who use beta software. We strongly discourage this approach: Your customers may be fellow developers or people who need to run beta software for other reasons, and deterring them from running your app may make them feel shut out — or lose trust in your software. Instead, if you’re running into a serious problem on a beta that may make for a sub-par experience and you won’t be able to address it in an update, consider sharing your issue — as well as the steps you’re taking to address it — on your website to help inform people who might need to use your app. Foster feedback While people running beta software won’t be able to leave reviews for your app in the App Store, they can still provide valuable feedback. Consider creating an easy method for your customers to provide bug reports — they may find something you’ve missed! Additionally, if you’re struggling to fix an issue brought on by a beta update, consider reaching out to the broader developer community through platforms like the Apple Developer Forums. Your question may be able to help others who may be struggling with similar challenges. Future-proof your app Outside of the beta release cycle, it’s worth regularly evaluating your project (and any server-side code you maintain) to consider if there are ways you can improve and future-proof aspects of your app. A few questions to ask yourself: Are there warnings in your Xcode project that you can fix or remove? Do you have any code that relies on a specific platform or deprecated API that you can update or make platform-agnostic? Are you using any third-party frameworks that rely on deprecated code? Can you improve your app’s error handling to continue gracefully when encountering unexpected issues?

  • Enhance bug reports with debug profiles and logging

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 02 Jun 2022 09:00:29 PDT

    When you file bug reports through Apple’s Feedback Assistant, you help flag issues, improve our platforms, and elevate the experience for developers and customers alike. You can supply more information about bugs you come across — and improve the quality of your reports — when you provide a sysdiagnose from your device and logging generated from a debug profile. Both can help engineers reproduce bugs and increase the likelihood of an issue being fixed. As always, the sooner you submit a new problem — and the more information you provide — the higher likelihood you have of getting it resolved in a future software version. Articles File effective bug reports Explore this collection for some of our top tips for making sure your bug report is clear, actionable, and - most importantly — fixable. Sysdiagnoses and debug profiles Sysdiagnoses can be a crucial part of the bug-solving process. They contain logs that include additional information gathered from apps and frameworks that you can submit as part of your bug report. That said, a sysdiagnose can contain a lot of information, and you can help the engineers triaging your issue by providing helpful context. That’s where Apple’s Profiles and Logs page comes in: It provides supplemental instructions when reporting an issue with specific frameworks. If you think you know the framework that’s causing your problem, check its bug reporting and logging instructions; you may be able to provide additional information to help make your report more actionable. Visit the Profiles and Logs section of the Apple Developer website to find out more about filing supplemental information for a bug. Sometimes, a sysdiagnose is not enough, even with supplemental instruction. Debug profiles can help capture specific details about a technology or framework to aid engineers in diagnosing the problem. To install a debug profile, download it to your device from the Profiles and Logs page and follow the instructions to capture the requested information. Learn more about Profiles and Logs Sysdiagnoses and debug profiles are especially crucial when filing bugs against beta software, as prioritizations around fixes have to be made in early seeds. If you file a detailed bug with logs and a clear reproduction path, you have a much better chance to have your problem prioritized and fixed during the beta process.

  • How to file great bug reports

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 02 Jun 2022 09:00:23 PDT

    Bugs are an inevitable part of the development process. Though they can be frustrating to bump up against, you can help squash these sorts of problems quickly by identifying the issue you’re running into, reproducing it, and filing a bug report through Apple’s Feedback Assistant. Learn more about Feedback Assistant Learn more about our privacy policy when filing bugs with Feedback Assistant You should always file feedback for any bugs you find while developing for Apple platforms; after all, we can’t fix problems we don’t know about. But how can you be sure that the information you provide is helpful for triaging the issue, rather than a bug-solving dead end? Here are our top tips for making sure your bug report is clear, actionable, and — most importantly — fixable. Be clear, direct, and detailed When logging any new bug report, be as descriptive as you can, starting with a title that clearly describes both the issue and the inciting factor. A title like “Calendar events are missing” leaves out important information like how or why, while a title like “Calendar events on macOS 12.4 are missing after creating a quick event” provides more actionable detail. Tip: It’s often helpful for bug screeners to understand how issues might affect app development. If you identify a problem while developing your app, include the name and version of your app in both the title and description field — even if you can reproduce the problem in a standalone sample project — and add a link to your App Store record or a TestFlight build. When writing up your problem, describe each step thoroughly — it’s often helpful to pretend that whoever reads your report has never encountered the app or system you’re writing about. For example, a statement like, “When I create an event in Calendar, it disappears in a moment” omits many of the details necessary to reproduce the issue. Are you creating a Calendar event through the Quick Event button, through Siri, or are you dragging to add a new event? How long is a moment? Did the event disappear after multitasking, or did you remain in the app? Whenever a bug screener has to pause and consider this kind of question, it reduces the likelihood that your problem can get fixed quickly. Instead, consider how you could describe your bug in detail. For instance, you could write: 1. Click Quick Event button in the Calendar app. 2. Fill out an event with any title. 3. Hit Return. Actual Results: The event appears in the right place in my calendar but then disappears. Expected Results: The Calendar event should appear and stay on my calendar. After you fill out your reproduction steps and expected result, consider any additional factors that could influence the problem. Are you signed into iCloud? Do you have any Accessibility settings turned on? Can you reproduce the issue elsewhere in the operating system? The more information you include in the initial report, the faster the screener can triage it effectively and get it over to the right team for a fix. Add a few visuals A screenshot or screen recording of the reproduced bug can provide valuable clues — and might include details you may not have considered writing in the description field. If you have an issue with UI, you should always include visuals. Log the crash Unfortunately, not all bugs are reproducible or have easy-to-follow steps. For these trickier cases, consider providing logging information like a sysdiagnose; if you’re filing a bug on iPhone or iPad, you can use the Feedback Assistant app to capture one automatically. If you’re filing through Apple’s web portal, you can install profiles to help you manually gather a sysdiagnose. You can also provide any additional logging relevant to the issue. For example, if you’re experiencing a crash, include your app’s crash logs. If you’re reporting a performance regression, include an Instruments Trace on iOS or iPadOS, or a Sample on macOS. Create a sample project Running into an issue while developing an app? Consider isolating the problem into a small sample project or Swift Playgrounds project that compiles. Not only can it help you narrow down the specific bug you’re facing, it’s also one of the easiest ways for bug screeners and engineers to triage the problem. If you can’t produce a full sample project, sample code is also helpful — all additional information that can help narrow down the issue is valuable. Escalate your report If you’re a paid member of the Apple Developer Program, Enterprise Program, or MFi Program having a technical issue with one of Apple’s platforms on a production release, consider filing a Technical Support Incident. This is a request for code-level support for Apple frameworks, APIs, and tools when you can’t fix a bug, encounter trouble when implementing a specific technology, or have general questions about your code. Request technical support

  • File effective bug reports

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 02 Jun 2022 08:05:59 PDT

    Bugs are an inevitable part of the development process. Though they can be frustrating to bump up against, you can help squash these sorts of problems quickly by identifying the issue you’re running into, reproducing it, and filing a bug report. Here are some of our top tips for making sure your bug report is clear, actionable, and — most importantly — fixable. Articles How to test your app on beta software Apple regularly provides platform updates to add new features, fix bugs, and continue to improve the experience for everyone who uses our products. As part of that process, we offer beta software for developers as well as a Public Beta Software Program. This lets developers test apps on upcoming... Articles How to file great bug reports Bugs are an inevitable part of the development process. Though they can be frustrating to bump up against, you can help squash these sorts of problems quickly by identifying the issue you’re running into, reproducing it, and filing a bug report. Here are some of our top tips for making sure your... Articles Enhance bug reports with debug profiles and logging When you file bug reports through Apple’s Feedback Assistant, you’re helping flag issues, improve our platforms, and make the experience better for developers and customers alike. WWDC19 Great Developer Habits Successful app development requires mastering a lot of different things. Discover practices you can incorporate into your development workflow to enhance your productivity, and improve your app’s performance and stability. Learn how to improve the quality of code you write with Xcode. Gain a...

  • Code one, code all

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 31 May 2022 07:00:14 PDT

    WWDC22 is almost here. We’ll be kicking off with the Apple Keynote on June 6 at 10:00 a.m. PT. Watch online at apple.com or in the Apple Developer app. You can even use SharePlay to watch with friends. Digital Lounges are now open for registration for eligible developers. Designed to connect you with the developer community and Apple experts, they’ll feature text-based Q&As, session watch parties with the presenters, community icebreakers, and more. In addition, a variety of developer organizations will host events throughout the week of WWDC. Find even more opportunities for learning, networking, and fun. Visit the updated WWDC22 site

  • Apple Design Award finalists announced

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 31 May 2022 06:58:23 PDT

    The Apple Design Awards celebrate apps and games that excel in the categories of Inclusivity, Delight and Fun, Interaction, Social Impact, Visuals and Graphics, and Innovation. Discover this year’s finalists, then tune in June 6 at 5 p.m. PT to watch the event as part of WWDC22. Discover the finalists

  • Welcome to the Apple Developer app

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 26 May 2022 07:00:58 PDT

    Welcome to the latest version of the Apple Developer app — your resource to help you create great apps for Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple TV, and the best way to experience WWDC. Whether you’re a veteran UI designer, computer science student, or developer just starting your journey, you can turn to the Developer app for best practices, tips, tricks, and resources for every part of your process. Learn about the latest Apple technologies and explore new ideas through session videos, articles, and related documentation. Get alerted to the latest news and announcements. Explore events and activities like labs, Digital Lounges, and Coding and Design Challenges. And find inspiration from the stories of the Apple developer community. Plot out your WWDC week The Developer app is your home for this year’s online WWDC experience. On June 6, join millions of developers around the world to learn about the future of Apple platforms at the Keynote and Platforms State of the Union — and then come back later to discover the winners of our annual Apple Design Awards. Throughout the week, you can browse the WWDC tab for the complete schedule of each day’s session videos, labs, Digital Lounge activities, and Coding and Design Challenges. You can sign up for labs and Digital Lounges right in the app, too — don’t miss out on a chance to connect with Apple engineers, designers, and business and marketing specialists. Want to learn more about a specific subject? Check out our WWDC topic sections, which feature dedicated schedules and highlights for areas like Design, SwiftUI, Machine Learning, and more. SharePlay along The Developer app now supports SharePlay so that you can watch videos together with your friends and colleagues. To get started, simply initiate a FaceTime call, then go to the Developer app to begin playback. Once inside the app, you can choose whether to play the video on your own device or share it with everyone on the call. On iOS and iPadOS, you can also start SharePlay from the share sheet. Search with substance Need more information about an API like AsyncImage or slicing attributed strings? The Developer app supports full transcript and code snippet search of all our content, both in the app and via Spotlight on Mac, iOS, and iPadOS.

  • Account deletion requirement starts June 30

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 24 May 2022 14:10:27 PDT

    As a reminder, apps that support account creation must let users initiate deletion of their account within the app starting June 30, 2022, as described in App Store Review Guideline 5.1.1(v). This deadline was extended to provide additional time for implementation of this requirement. Please keep these requirements in mind when updating your app: The account deletion option should be easy to find in your app. If your app offers Sign in with Apple, you’ll need to use the Sign in with Apple REST API to revoke user tokens when deleting an account. It’s insufficient to only provide the ability to temporarily disable or deactivate an account. People should be able to delete the account along with their personal data. Apps in highly-regulated industries may provide additional customer service flows to confirm and facilitate the account deletion process. Follow applicable legal requirements for storing and retaining user account information, and for handling account deletion. This includes complying with local laws in different countries or regions. As always, check with your legal counsel. Learn about offering account deletion

  • Swiftly approaching

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 24 May 2022 08:10:19 PDT

    Get ready for June 6 at 10:00 a.m. PT, when WWDC22 gathers the developer community for an exciting online experience. Mark your calendars for the keynote and Platforms State of the Union. Learn about sessions, one-on-one labs, Digital Lounges, and more. Learn more

  • Check out the latest App Store feature videos

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 17 May 2022 06:00:10 PDT

    The App Store provides a wealth of tools, resources, and features you can use to help people discover and engage with your app or game. Check out a few of the latest videos we've put together to help you get the most out of your App Store product pages, in-app events, and subscriptions. Explore in-app events In-app events are timely events within apps and games such as game competitions, movie premieres, live-streamed experiences, and more. On iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 and later, in-app events appear on your App Store product page, in search results, and in editorially curated selections and personalized recommendations. This can help you encourage new people to download your app, keep current users interested, or bring back people who haven’t engaged with your app recently. Learn more about the in-app events feature and get recommendations, tips, and best practices for helping people discover content or events within your app. Tech Talks Get started with in-app events Discover how you can highlight your app or game's content on the App Store. We'll take you through the in-app events feature and provide recommendations, tips, and best practices for helping people discover content or events within your app. In-App Events Create custom product pages Did you know you can create additional versions of your App Store product page on iOS and iPadOS 15? With custom product pages, you can showcase different features or content within your app. For example, you might highlight a particular sport, character, show, or gameplay feature or even seasonal or culturally relevant content. Each custom product page can include screenshots, promotional text, and app previews that are different from those on your default product page. You share each custom product page with different audiences through unique URLs. Discover how you can set up custom product pages in App Store Connect and measure their performance in App Analytics as well as strategies for success. Tech Talks Get started with custom product pages Learn how you can create additional versions of your App Store product page and showcase different features or content within your app. We'll explore how you can create pages for a specific aspect of your app or a specific audience, show you how to set it up in App Store Connect, and highlight... Custom Product Pages Overview Optimize your product page With product page optimization, you can test different elements of your App Store product page to understand which resonate with people most. Alternate versions of your product page, called “treatments” in App Store Connect, are shown to a percentage of people on iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 or later, who are selected at random. You can view and compare how each treatment performs against your original product page and use this insight to optimize your product page, including applying the elements of a better performing treatment to your product page. Find out how you can use product page optimization to make your App Store product page even more relevant and effective. You’ll also learn more about the setup process in App Store Connect; how to test different app icons, screenshots, and app previews; and testing strategies to help you get started. Tech Talks Get started with product page optimization Help make your App Store product page even more relevant and effective with product page optimization. We’ll explore details of the feature, take you through the setup process in App Store Connect including how to test different app icons, screenshots and app previews, and share testing... Product Page Optimization Overview Discover custom offer codes for subscriptions Offer codes can help you acquire, retain, and win back subscribers by providing an auto-renewable subscription at a discount or for free for a limited time. You can create two types of offer codes — one-time-use codes and custom codes — and distribute them through online or offline channels. Learn about offer codes for subscriptions, including the latest enhancements to offer codes, how to set up custom offer code campaigns, implementation tips, best practices, and more. We’ll also review how can complement your existing offer codes campaigns with custom codes to provide even more flexibility to acquire and retain subscribers. Tech Talks Get started with custom offer codes Discover how you can complement existing offer codes campaigns with custom, repeatable codes to provide even more flexibility to acquire and retain subscribers. We'll take you through the latest enhancements to offer codes, provide engineering guidance, explore best practices, and show you how to... Providing Subscription Offers Optimize subscriptions for success Looking to optimize your app’s subscription strategy? Start here and explore subscriber acquisition strategies, implementation best practices, and how to integrate these processes into your app for success. Tech Talks Optimize subscriptions for success: acquisition Learn how you can acquire subscribers and grow your business using App Store features. We'll explore subscriber acquisition strategies, share implementation best practices, and show you how to integrate these processes into your app for success. Auto-renewable Subscriptions

  • Update to subscription notifications

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 16 May 2022 15:32:03 PDT

    Auto-renewable subscriptions are a great way to let people access content, services, or premium features in your app. And Apple continues to set the bar in making it easy and transparent for subscribers to view, cancel, or manage their subscriptions. Our comprehensive approach includes providing email, push notifications, and in-app messaging to let subscribers know about upcoming changes and how to manage their subscriptions, or cancel if they prefer. Currently, when an auto-renewable subscription price is increased, subscribers must opt in before the price increase is applied. The subscription doesn’t renew at the next billing period for subscribers who didn't opt in to the new price. This has led to some services being unintentionally interrupted for users and they must take steps to resubscribe within the app, from Settings on iPhone and iPad, or in the App Store on Mac. With this update, under certain specific conditions and with advance user notice, developers may also offer an auto-renewable subscription price increase, without the user needing to take action and without interrupting the service. The specific conditions for this feature are that the price increase doesn’t occur more than once per year, doesn’t exceed US$5 and 50% of the subscription price, or US$50 and 50% for an annual subscription price, and is permissible by local law. In these situations, Apple always notifies users of an increase in advance, including via email, push notification, and a message within the app. Apple will also notify users of how to view, manage, and cancel subscriptions if preferred. For all subscription price increases that are above the thresholds, exceed the annual limit, or occur within territories where the law requires it, subscribers must opt in before the price increase is applied. The subscription won’t renew at the next billing period for subscribers who didn’t opt in to the new price. They can always resubscribe within the app, from Settings on iPhone and iPad, or in the App Store on Mac. For details, view App Store Connect Help.

  • WWDC22 special event submissions open

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 09 May 2022 08:20:41 PDT

    We’re hosting a special all-day experience at Apple Park on June 6 to kick off WWDC22, and we can’t wait to connect in person. Members of the Apple Developer Program and Apple Developer Enterprise Program, and 2022 Swift Student Challenge applicants can submit their request to be included in the random selection process starting today until May 11 at 9 a.m. PT. This celebration marks the start of an inspiring week of sessions, labs, and lounges — all online and with more activities than ever. Learn more

  • Clarifying criteria &amp; new timing extension for App Store Improvements process

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 29 Apr 2022 17:08:31 PDT

    User trust in quality apps is the basis for all we have done in building and running the App Store. Back in 2016, to ensure a great user experience and at the suggestion of developers, we launched the App Store Improvements process to remove apps that no longer function as intended, don’t follow current review guidelines or are outdated. This helps us ensure apps work for the vast majority of users and support our latest innovations in security and privacy. Over the course of the past six years, we have removed almost 2.8 million apps as part of this process. Users and developers alike have benefitted from this effort, including: Discoverability. Users are able to find great apps that fit their needs more easily when outdated apps are no longer on the App Store. This in turn helps developers’ apps become more easily discoverable on the store. Security and privacy. Apple hardware and software are constantly evolving, and we frequently provide developers with new tools to enhance performance, security and privacy. When developers update their apps to incorporate such technologies, they’re doing their part to help safeguard user safety and security. User experience. Keeping apps up to date to conform with modern screen sizes, SDKs, APIs, and all of the other features offered on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS ensures users can have a great experience with any app they get from the App Store. As part of the App Store Improvements process, developers of apps that have not been updated within the last three years and fail to meet a minimal download threshold — meaning the app has not been downloaded at all or extremely few times during a rolling 12 month period — receive an email notifying them that their app has been identified for possible removal from the App Store. Apple always wants to help developers get and keep quality software on the App Store. That’s why developers can appeal app removals. And developers, including those who recently received a notice, will now be given more time to update their apps if needed — up to 90 days. Apps that are removed will continue to function as normal for users who have already downloaded the app on their device. To learn more, visit the revised App Store Improvements Support Page.

  • Small developer assistance submission requests due by May 20

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 25 Apr 2022 08:00:00 PDT

    Last year, Apple announced a $100 million fund to assist US small developers. Eligible developers have until May 20, 2022 to submit a request to an independent administrator to receive payment. The fund is open to all developers based in the United States who: Sold paid apps or in-app purchases (including subscriptions) through the App Store between June 4, 2015 and April 26, 2021; and Earned proceeds equal to or less than $1 million through the US storefront in each calendar year in which they had a developer account between 2015 to 2021. Learn more at https://smallappdeveloperassistance.com/

  • Upcoming tax and price changes for apps and in-app purchases

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 08 Apr 2022 12:23:50 PDT

    When taxes or foreign exchange rates change, we sometimes need to update prices on the App Store in certain regions and/or adjust your proceeds. In the next few days, prices of apps and in-app purchases (excluding auto-renewable subscriptions) on the App Store will increase in Cambodia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and Uganda. The increases also consider the following tax changes: Cambodia: New value-added tax of 10% for developers based outside of Cambodia Kazakhstan: New value-added tax of 12% Kyrgyzstan: New value-added tax of 12% for developers based outside of Kyrgyzstan Uganda: New value-added tax of 18% Your proceeds will be adjusted accordingly and will be calculated based on the tax-exclusive price. Exhibit B of the Paid Applications Agreement will be updated to indicate that Apple collects and remits applicable taxes in these locations. In addition, prices on the App Store in Indonesia will not change, but proceeds for developers based outside of Indonesia will be adjusted to reflect an increase of value-added tax from 10% to 11%. Once these changes go into effect, the Pricing and Availability section of My Apps will be updated. You can change the price of your apps and in-app purchases (including auto-renewable subscriptions) at any time in App Store Connect. If you offer subscriptions, you can choose to preserve prices for existing subscribers. View the updated price tier charts

  • SwiftUI &amp; UI Frameworks

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:57:23 PDT

  • SwiftUI &amp; UI Frameworks

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:57:23 PDT

  • Swift

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:57:02 PDT

  • Swift

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:57:02 PDT

  • Safari &amp; Web

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:56:40 PDT

  • Safari &amp; Web

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:56:40 PDT

  • Privacy &amp; Security

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:55:37 PDT

  • Privacy &amp; Security

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:55:37 PDT

  • Photos &amp; Camera

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:55:15 PDT

  • Photos &amp; Camera

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:55:15 PDT

  • ML &amp; Vision

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:54:48 PDT

  • ML &amp; Vision

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:54:48 PDT

  • Maps &amp; Location

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:54:21 PDT

  • Maps &amp; Location

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:54:21 PDT

  • Health &amp; Fitness

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:53:57 PDT

  • Health &amp; Fitness

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:53:57 PDT

  • Graphics &amp; Games

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:53:35 PDT

  • Graphics &amp; Games

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:53:35 PDT

  • Coding &amp; Design Essentials

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:52:26 PDT

  • Coding &amp; Design Essentials

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:52:26 PDT

  • Developer Tools

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:52:02 PDT

  • Developer Tools

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:52:02 PDT

  • Design

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:51:41 PDT

  • Design

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:51:41 PDT

  • Business &amp; Education

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:51:04 PDT

  • Business &amp; Education

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:51:04 PDT

  • App Store Distribution &amp; Marketing

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:50:32 PDT

  • App Store Distribution &amp; Marketing

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:50:32 PDT

  • Augmented Reality

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:50:06 PDT

  • Augmented Reality

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:50:06 PDT

  • Audio &amp; Video

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:49:41 PDT

  • Audio &amp; Video

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:49:41 PDT

  • App Services

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:49:01 PDT

  • App Services

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:49:01 PDT

  • Accessibility &amp; Inclusion

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:48:02 PDT

  • Accessibility &amp; Inclusion

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:48:02 PDT

  • WWDC22. Call to code.

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 05 Apr 2022 07:00:49 PDT

    Join developers worldwide from June 6 to 10 for an inspiring week of technology and community. Get a first look at Apple’s latest platforms and technologies in sessions, explore the newest tools and tips, and connect with Apple experts in labs and digital lounges. All online and at no cost. In addition to the online conference, Apple will host a special day for developers and students at Apple Park on June 6 to watch the keynote and State of the Union videos together, along with the online community. Space is limited and details on how to apply to attend will be provided soon. Wherever you watch from, get ready for a fantastic WWDC. Talented students can showcase their creativity for the opportunity to receive an award in the Swift Student Challenge. Visit the WWDC website

  • Update on “reader” app distribution

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 30 Mar 2022 09:58:04 PDT

    Last year, Apple announced an update coming to the App Store in early 2022 that would allow developers of “reader” apps to include an in-app link to their website for account creation and management purposes. Starting today, with the update of App Store Review guideline 3.1.3(a), developers of reader apps can now request access to the External Link Account Entitlement. This entitlement lets reader apps link to a website that is owned or maintained by the developer, so that users can create or manage their account outside of the app. Reader apps are apps that provide one or more of the following digital content types — magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, or video — as the primary functionality of the app. Learn about the External Link Account Entitlement

  • Update on StoreKit External Entitlement for dating apps

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 30 Mar 2022 09:56:18 PDT

    Since February of this year, developers of dating apps on the App Store in the Netherlands have been able to use the StoreKit External Purchase Entitlement or the StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlement to enable the capability to sell services through a payment system other than Apple’s in-app purchase system. Apple established these entitlements as part of our plan to comply with a recent Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) order. Today we’ve introduced changes to these entitlements, which include: Removal of the Separate Binary Requirement: Apple is eliminating the requirement that developers of dating apps in the Netherlands who choose to use the above entitlements must create and use a separate binary. This change means that developers may include either entitlement in their existing dating app, but still must limit its use to the app in the Netherlands storefront and on devices running iOS or iPadOS. Payment Service Provider Criteria: Apple is providing updated and more-specific criteria to evaluate non-Apple payment service providers that developers of dating apps in the Netherlands may use. Consumer Disclosures: Apps that use either entitlement need to include an in-app modal sheet that explains to users that they’re going to make purchases through an external payment system, and the potential impact that choice could have on the user. Apple is adjusting the language on the modal sheet and reducing the number of times the sheet must be displayed. Developers of dating apps who want to continue using Apple’s in-app purchase system — which we believe is the safest and most secure way for users to purchase digital goods and services — may do so and no further action is needed. As we have previously said, we disagree with the ACM’s original order and are appealing it. In the meantime, the changes we’ve made today demonstrate Apple’s ongoing commitment to fulfill its legal obligations in the Netherlands. Learn more

  • Promote your apps

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 30 Mar 2022 07:00:19 PDT

    You’ve made a great app and published it on the App Store. Now, it’s time to help people find out about it. We’ll review how you can use the App Store’s existing tools, promotional offers, and more to drive downloads, in-app purchases, and subscriptions for your app. Check out these five tips for promoting your apps and introducing new people to your ideas. Highlight specific content with custom product pages Custom product pages allow you to share additional versions of your product page on the App Store to highlight different features or content within your app. These are discoverable through unique URLs that you share and can have different screenshots, app previews, and promotional text — and they’re fully localizable, too. You can design custom product pages that focus on a particular sport, spotlight a specific character or show from your app’s content library, point to specific and unique gameplay features, and more. And you can publish up to 35 custom product pages per app, giving you the flexibility and freedom to market your app to multiple audiences. Tech Talks Get started with custom product pages Learn how you can create additional versions of your App Store product page and showcase different features or content within your app. We'll explore how you can create pages for a specific aspect of your app or a specific audience, show you how to set it up in App Store Connect, and highlight... Custom Product Pages Overview Boost your content with custom assets and links Help people download your app with the App Store Marketing Tools. Use the site to generate a content link, short link, or QR code that takes people directly to your product page on the App Store. You can also generate “Download on the App Store” badges — including localized versions of these assets — and embed them in your marketing communications to promote downloads of your app. You can even customize your marketing with banners and images and add preset messages in multiple languages to promote your apps in your advertising efforts. To get started, simply find your app, then copy and embed the URL and add it on your website or other promotional efforts. Be sure to review the App Store Marketing and Identity Guidelines for information on proper badge use and graphic standards. App Store Marketing Tools Create Smart App Banners to promote your app from a website Make it easy for people to download or open your app from your website on iOS and iPadOS. With Safari’s Smart App Banners, you can display an unobtrusive banner that provides a direct link to your app on the App Store or directly opens the app if it’s already installed. Promoting Apps with Smart App Banners Generate promo codes to raise awareness of your app Give people, press, and influencers early access to your app or its in-app purchases with promo codes. These codes are configured in App Store Connect and can be created, distributed, and redeemed even before your app is live on the App Store. You can give away up to 100 promo codes per version of your app, per platform — and up to 100 promo codes per in-app purchase. Manage promo codes Submit your app for feature consideration on the App Store The App Store editorial team helps shine a spotlight on App Store developers doing incredible work as well as the apps that impact the lives of people around the world. If your app, game, or development team has a unique story, the App Store’s editors would love to hear about it. For best results, submit your story to the App Store editorial team at least six to eight weeks in advance of your launch or update. Tell us about your app or game Getting Featured on the App Store Resources Creating Your Product Page Discovery on the App Store and Mac App Store Optimizing for App Store search

  • App Store sessions available through March 29

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 15 Mar 2022 15:56:38 PDT

    There’s still time to connect with Apple experts through online sessions where you can learn about the latest App Store features and get your questions answered. Find out how to create product pages that resonate best with the people you’d like to reach, provide great subscription experiences, distribute custom offer codes, and promote your in-app events. Register today if you’re a member of the Apple Developer Program. View schedule

  • App Store submission requirement starts April 25

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 15 Mar 2022 09:48:54 PDT

    Starting April 25, 2022, iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS apps submitted to the App Store must be built with Xcode 13, which includes the SDKs for iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and watchOS 8. Make the most of the exciting features in iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and watchOS 8 to offer even more intuitive and valuable user experiences. Improve your app’s performance by refactoring your code to take advantage of asynchronous functions in Swift. And with the latest updates to SwiftUI, you can enhance your apps with new features, such as improved list views, better search experiences, and support for control focus areas. iPhone and iPad apps. iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 let you take advantage of Safari web extensions, SharePlay and the Group Activities API, Focus, ShazamKit, Create ML, and more. You can also publish custom product pages and in-app events, and run product page optimization tests on the App Store on these platforms. Learn more Apple Watch apps. New watchOS 8 features include the Always-On Retina Display so your apps always stay visible, Bluetooth connections from complications, region-based user notifications, and more. Learn more

  • Enable Family Sharing for your subscriptions

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 15 Feb 2022 10:00:46 PST

    Family Sharing helps people share access to eligible auto-renewable subscriptions with up to five iCloud family members across their Apple devices. You can enable Family Sharing for your subscriptions to grow your subscription business, encourage paid memberships, and improve subscriber retention. Learn how you can set up Family Sharing for your subscriptions and discover some of the benefits of opting into this feature. Tech Talks Family Sharing for in-app purchases Family Sharing for in-app purchases lets people share their auto-renewable subscriptions and non-consumables with up to five additional family members, helping you attract new subscribers, increase user engagement, and improve retention. We’ll review how to enable in App Store Connect and provide... How to enable Family Sharing for your subscriptions You can turn on Family Sharing for your subscription in App Store Connect. You can enable this feature on a per-subscription basis, and support either new or existing subscriptions. Please note that once you enable Family Sharing for a subscription, you won’t be able to turn this feature off. Go to App Store Connect. From the My Apps section, select your app. Select In-App Purchases and pick the Manage option. Select the auto-renewable subscription you’d like to enable Family Sharing for. Click or tap “Turn On.” To verify the purchase and provide access to subscribers and their family, make sure to perform purchase validation. If you choose to offer Family Sharing as a higher level of service, be sure to rank this subscription in the same level as the individual subscription in App Store Connect so customers can upgrade if they wish. Leveraging server to server receipt validation Explore default sharing behavior Whether a Family Sharing-enabled subscription is shared automatically with a purchaser’s family depends on their subscription sharing settings and whether the subscription was purchased before or after you enabled Family Sharing. By default, customers are opted in to share eligible new subscriptions with their family, and they can go to the Manage Subscriptions page under their App Store account or Apple ID settings to opt out at any time. To ensure user privacy, existing subscriptions that were purchased before Family Sharing was enabled are not shared by default. Subscribers who don’t share their subscription by default will receive a push notification from Apple that their subscription can be shared with their Family Sharing members. This notification links to the Manage Subscriptions page, where subscribers can choose to share the subscription with their family group. Highlight Family Sharing subscriptions in your app To help people make a selection that best fits their needs, there are several different ways you can merchandise Family Sharing within your app. Promote Family Sharing pre-purchase. When crafting a signup screen for your subscription, we recommend highlighting that Family Sharing is an included benefit. If you offer multiple subscription options including a higher-priced option that includes Family Sharing, consider noting this on your signup screen along with the incremental cost increase, so customers can distinguish their options. Highlight the feature for existing subscribers. As a reminder, even if a subscription supports Family Sharing, it may not be shared by default depending on someone’s subscription sharing settings and whether they purchased the subscription prior to Family Sharing being enabled in App Store Connect. You can remind subscribers of this functionality — for example, as part of onboarding for new purchasers, or for existing subscribers via an in-app message — in order to help build awareness and encourage sharing. Consider including instructions on how they can make sure they’ve turned on Family Sharing for your subscription. Offer Family Sharing as an upgrade. You can display in-app messaging to existing individual subscribers to let them know a subscription with Family Sharing is available and encourage them to upgrade. This can help customers upgrade their subscription without leaving your app. Be sure you’ve ranked the updated subscriptions within the same subscription level in App Store Connect to provide a smooth upgrade path. You might also indicate that Family Sharing is available by including it in the subscription’s display name. This makes it easy for people to distinguish if a subscription offers this functionality when viewing their subscription options and managing their subscription. Build awareness with family members. You can provide custom messaging within your app depending on who purchased the subscription. Use ownershipType to identify whether you’re providing information to the purchaser or another family member. For example, during onboarding you might ask the purchaser to verify their Family Sharing settings as well as provide opportunities for them to share the app through a share extension. Resources Learn more about Family Sharing subscriptions Learn more about designing subscriptions Supporting Family Sharing in Your App

  • Get ready for App Store sessions

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 08 Feb 2022 08:40:52 PST

    Connect with Apple experts through online sessions February 15 to March 29 to learn about the latest App Store features and get your questions answered. Find out how to create product pages that resonate best with the people you’d like to reach, provide great subscription experiences, distribute custom offer codes, and promote your in-app events. Register today if you’re a member of the Apple Developer Program. View schedule

  • Additional details available for dating apps in the Netherlands

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 03 Feb 2022 22:35:55 PST

    Throughout its history, Apple’s App Store has helped drive innovation in the Netherlands. Today, the iOS app economy supports over 184,000 Dutch jobs, and we have helped Dutch developers access markets and customers in 175 regions around the world through the App Store. A key reason for this success is that users have come to trust the App Store as the safest and most secure way to purchase digital goods and services. Apple’s in-app purchase system, an integral part of our world-class commerce platform, offers people a private and secure user experience across apps and Apple devices, and makes it easy for them to manage their purchases and subscriptions. A recent order from the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) will allow developers of dating apps on the Netherlands App Store to use alternate payment processing options. These changes will compromise the user experience, and create new threats to user privacy and data security. We have appealed the ACM’s decision. In the meantime, we are required to make the mandated changes and are providing further details today which satisfy our legal obligations in the Netherlands while helping to protect users from these increased risks. Developers of dating apps who want to continue using Apple’s in-app purchase system, which we believe is the safest and most secure way for users to purchase digital goods and services, may do so and no further action is needed. Developers of dating apps on the Netherlands App Store who would like to offer an alternate payment method can complete a request for one of two optional entitlements. The entitlements provide the capability to sell services through a payment system other than Apple’s in-app purchase system. Before considering using one of these entitlements, it’s important to understand that some App Store features that you may use won’t be available to your customers, in part because we cannot validate the security and safety of payments that take place outside of the App Store’s private and secure payment system. Because Apple will not be aware of purchases made using alternative methods, Apple will not be able to assist users with refunds, purchase history, subscription management, and other issues encountered when purchasing digital goods and services through these alternative purchasing methods. You will be responsible for addressing such issues with customers. If you’re interested in using one of these entitlements with your dating app distributed in the Netherlands, we’ve provided more information on requesting the entitlement, usage guidelines, and implementation details. Learn more

  • Updated Apple Developer certificates now available

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 01 Feb 2022 12:18:13 PST

    As a reminder, the intermediate certificate updates are now available for the Apple Push Notification service (APNs) and Developer ID. Apple Worldwide Developer Relations Intermediate Certificate (G4) APNs SSL certificates are now issued from a new intermediate certificate (Worldwide Developer Relations G4 sub CA) exclusively focused on APNs. Use this certificate to send push notifications to apps (including VoIP), complications, websites on Safari, and Apple Wallet passes. Apple Developer ID Intermediate Certificate (G2) The digital certificates you use to sign your software and installer packages on macOS are now issued from a new Developer ID Intermediate Certificate that expires on September 16, 2031. Newly issued Developer ID certificates associated with the new intermediate certificate can be used to sign software on Xcode 11.4.1 and later. If you’re running Xcode 13.2 or later, the updated certificate will download automatically when you sign software after January 28, 2022. If you’re using an earlier version of Xcode, download the certificate manually or create certificates compatible with previous versions of Xcode. Your existing certificates will continue to function until expiration or revocation, whichever comes first. Download the updated certificates

  • Apple Search Ads now supports custom product pages

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 26 Jan 2022 13:32:49 PST

    With custom product pages, you can create up to 35 additional versions of your App Store product page to showcase different app features, content, or promotions. And now, new seamless integration with Apple Search Ads lets you easily use these pages to create tailored ad variations on the App Store. Learn about custom product pages Learn about Apple Search Ads

  • New App Store Connect API capabilities now available

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 25 Jan 2022 16:27:41 PST

    The App Store Connect API now offers greater flexibility to automate and customize workflows for your app. With these new capabilities, you can create and submit in-app events, custom product pages, and product page optimization tests. This release also includes support for the updated App Store submission experience, which lets you submit multiple items, submit without a new app version, and retrieve submission statuses. Learn about the API

  • Deadline for in-app purchase and account deletion requirements extended

    Apple Developer News · Sat, 22 Jan 2022 09:28:08 PST

    In order to provide more time for you to update your apps, we’ve changed the following requirement deadlines to June 30, 2022. Online group event in-app purchases In 2020, we chose to support apps and developers that needed to adapt services from in-person to digital as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we deferred App Store Review Guideline 3.1.1, which requires apps offering paid online group services to do so via in-app purchase. Given the recent resurgence of COVID and its continued impact on in-person services, we’ve extended the most recent deadline to June 30, 2022. As a reminder, guideline 3.1.3(d) allows apps offering realtime person-to-person services between two individuals (for example, tutoring students, medical consultations, real estate tours, or fitness training) to use purchase methods other than in-app purchase. Account deletion within apps App Store Review Guideline 5.1.1 provides people with greater control over their personal data by stating that all apps that allow for account creation must also allow users to initiate deletion of their account from within the app. This requirement was set to apply to all app submissions by January 31, 2022. Due to the complexity of implementing this requirement, we’ve extended the deadline to June 30, 2022 to give you more time. Please keep these requirements in mind when updating your app: The account deletion option should be easy to find in your app. It’s insufficient to only provide the ability to temporarily disable or deactivate an account. People should be able to delete the account along with their personal data. Apps in highly-regulated industries may need to provide additional support flows to confirm and facilitate the account deletion process. Follow applicable legal requirements for storing and retaining user account information. This includes complying with local laws in different countries or regions. As always, check with your legal counsel. Learn more about account deletion in the Human Interface Guidelines: iOS and iPadOS apps macOS apps tvOS apps

  • Custom offer codes for subscriptions now available

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 20 Jan 2022 14:18:26 PST

    Now it's even easier to acquire, retain, and win back subscribers. In addition to one-time-use codes, you can now create custom codes in App Store Connect — each with a unique name that you choose (such as SPRINGPROMO). Each code can be redeemed through a direct URL or within your app. Learn how to set up custom offer codes Learn about offer codes

  • Explore the latest videos

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 19 Jan 2022 07:00:24 PST

    Discover how you can add support for in-app events, develop for Apple Watch, learn about Metal for A15, and more. Tech Talks Build and deploy Safari Extensions for iOS Safari web extensions for iOS use standard web technologies to provide powerful browser customizations. Learn how you can build an extension that works for iPhone and iPad, and discover how you can publish your extension on the App Store. Tech Talks Get started with custom product pages Learn how you can create additional versions of your App Store product page and showcase different features or content within your app. We'll explore how you can create pages for a specific aspect of your app or a specific audience, show you how to set it up in App Store Connect, and highlight... Tech Talks Get started with product page optimization Help make your App Store product page even more relevant and effective with product page optimization. We’ll explore details of the feature, take you through the setup process in App Store Connect including how to test different app icons, screenshots and app previews, and share testing... Tech Talks Deploy iOS 15 in your organization Discover the latest platform changes for deploying iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 in your business or education organization. Learn about deploying both organization-owned and personally-owned iPhone and iPad devices. Explore fundamentals and new updates for deployment workflows including enrollment, ongoing... Tech Talks Prepare your organization for macOS Monterey Discover the latest platform changes for deploying macOS Monterey in your business or education organization. Learn about changes to initial enrollment, ongoing management, and return to service including managing software updates and the new Erase All Content and Settings feature for macOS. Tech Talks Tips for preventing common review issues Prepare your app for review with these tips from the App Review team. Learn how to prevent the most common issues and discover best practices for an easy and straightforward review experience. Tech Talks Explore and manipulate data in Swift with TabularData Discover how you can use the TabularData framework to load, explore, and manipulate unstructured data in Swift — whether you need to pre-process data for a machine learning task or digest data on-the-fly in your app. Learn how this framework can help you handle large datasets, join multiple... Tech Talks Metal Compute on MacBook Pro Discover how you can take advantage of Metal compute on the latest MacBook Pro. Learn the fundamental principles of high-performance Metal compute and find out how you can take advantage of the framework to create better workflows for your development process and even better apps for creative pros. Tech Talks Explore unlisted app distribution Discover a new way you can distribute apps to limited audiences on the App Store. We’ll take you through the differences between using unlisted distribution and standard distribution on the App Store, show you how to share apps with a direct link, and more. Tech Talks Get the most out of CloudKit Sharing Discover how apps can use CloudKit to share records with others. We'll show you how to encourage collaboration between people using your app and support those interactions with Apple frameworks. Learn how to create and manage shares, explore sharing options like public permissions, and find out how... Tech Talks Tune CPU job scheduling for Apple silicon games Graphically-intensive games can be very demanding on hardware resources, requiring hundreds or even thousands of CPU jobs to be processed every frame. We’ll show you how you can organize those jobs to maximize CPU efficiency and performance on the M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max chips. Learn how you can... Tech Talks Support customers with StoreKit 2 and App Store Server API Discover how you can use StoreKit 2, App Store Server API, and App Store Server Notifications to create great in-app purchase experiences for your customers and offer support and refunds. We’ll explore implementation approaches, provide best practices and take you through customer management and... Tech Talks Get started with in-app events Discover how you can highlight your app or game's content on the App Store. We'll take you through the in-app events feature and provide recommendations, tips, and best practices for helping people discover content or events within your app. Tech Talks Meet Apple Watch Series 7 Apple Watch Series 7 introduces new device sizes and a display that features a subtle wraparound effect. Learn how you can adapt your watchOS app design to look great on all screen sizes: We'll show you how to take advantage of a larger content area, create clearer hierarchy using color and... Tech Talks Discover advances in Metal for A15 Bionic Discover how you can elevate your apps and games with Metal and the A15 Bionic. We'll help you take advantage of Apple GPU family 8 with the latest Metal features: Learn how to save memory with Lossy Compression, dive into complex shadow mapping techniques with Sparse Depth and Stencil Textures,...

  • Update on dating apps distributed on the App Store in the Netherlands

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 14 Jan 2022 22:28:25 PST

    Apple designed the App Store to be a safe and trusted place for people to discover and download apps. Apple’s in-app purchase system, an integral part of our world-class commerce platform, offers people a private and secure user experience across apps and Apple devices, and makes it easy for them to manage their purchases and subscriptions for digital goods and services. Recent orders from the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) will allow developers of dating apps on the App Store in the Netherlands to share additional payment processing options with users. Because we do not believe these orders are in our users’ best interests, we have appealed the ACM’s decision to a higher court. We’re concerned these changes could compromise the user experience, and create new threats to user privacy and data security. In the meantime, we are obligated to make the mandated changes which we’re launching today and we will provide further information shortly. To comply with the ACM’s order, we’re introducing two optional new entitlements exclusively applicable to dating apps on the Netherlands App Store that provide additional payment processing options for users. Dating app developers who want to continue using Apple’s in-app purchase system may do so and no further action is needed. Before considering applying for one of these entitlements, it’s important to understand that some App Store features that you may use won’t be available to your customers, in part because we cannot validate the security and safety of payments that take place outside of the App Store’s private and secure payment system. Because Apple will not be directly aware of purchases made using alternative methods, Apple will not be able to assist users with refunds, purchase history, subscription management, and other issues encountered when purchasing digital goods and services through these alternative purchasing methods. You will be responsible for addressing such issues with customers. Learn more about these entitlements

  • About the updated App Store submission experience

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 14 Jan 2022 12:20:43 PST

    Last year, we introduced an updated way to submit apps, in-app events, custom product pages, and product page optimization tests for review in App Store Connect. Starting January 25, 2022, the submission experience will be automatically updated for all App Store Connect accounts. You’ll be able to submit multiple items, submit without needing a new app version, view past submissions, and more. If you’re ready to try it beforehand, Apple Developer Program Account Holders can enable the experience, which applies the update for all team members. No action is required if you’re already using the updated experience or you prefer to wait for the automatic update. Learn more

  • Upcoming tax and price changes for apps and in-app purchases

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 12 Jan 2022 16:08:59 PST

    When taxes or foreign exchange rates change, we sometimes need to update prices on the App Store in certain regions and/or adjust your proceeds. In the next few days, prices of apps and in-app purchases (excluding auto-renewable subscriptions) on the App Store will increase in the following regions. Your proceeds will be adjusted accordingly and will be calculated based on the tax-exclusive price. Bahrain: Increase of value-added tax from 5% to 10% Ukraine: New value-added tax of 20% Zimbabwe: New digital services tax of 5% Prices on the App Store in the following regions will not change, but your proceeds will be adjusted to reflect the following tax changes: The Bahamas: Decrease of value-added tax from 12% to 10% Oman: New value-added tax of 5% Tajikistan: Decrease of value-added tax from 18% to 15% In addition, your proceeds will be adjusted accordingly to reflect tax changes for the following content types, if you’ve selected the appropriate tax category in App Store Connect and the changes impact your proceeds: Austria: Value-added tax rate reversion to 10% after temporary decrease to 5% for qualifying e-books and audiobooks Latvia: Value-added tax rate decrease from 21% to 5% for qualifying e-books and e-publications Romania: Value-added tax rate decrease from 19% to 5% for qualifying e-books, audiobooks, and e-publications Once these changes go into effect, the Pricing and Availability section of My Apps will be updated. You can change the price of your apps and in-app purchases (including auto-renewable subscriptions) at any time in App Store Connect. If you offer subscriptions, you can choose to preserve prices for existing subscribers. View the updated price tier charts

  • Analytics now available for in-app events

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 06 Jan 2022 13:56:02 PST

    App Analytics in App Store Connect helps you see how people discover and engage with your apps. You can now view information about your in-app events, including event page views, reminder and notification data, and the number of downloads and redownloads that were driven by your in-app events. Each metric can be viewed by territory, source type, device, and more, so you can understand how your in-app events are influencing your apps’ growth and success. Learn about App Analytics Learn about in-app events

  • Add a Maps Web Snapshot to your online content

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 04 Jan 2022 01:00:19 PST

    Maps Web Snapshots let you visually share important points of interest and details including business locations, geographic boundaries, and routes — simply by loading a URL. Snapshots work well when you’d like to replace a static image on your website, within an email, or in another location where JavaScript isn’t available and you don't have need for a fully interactive map. You’ve probably seen Maps Web Snapshots in action if you’ve used DuckDuckGo as your search engine. To function, a Snapshot URL requires basic account information — including your Team ID and a Key ID you’ll create specifically for accessing Apple Maps — along with a physical location to center the map. You’ll also append a signature to ensure that the map request isn’t altered anywhere between your server and Apple Maps. https://snapshot.apple-mapkit.com/api/v1/snapshot?center=[location name or coordinates]&teamId=[Team ID]&keyId=[Maps Key ID]&signature=[base64_url_encoded_signature] The center point of a map is the only required parameter for the URL, and can be either a comma-separated latitude and longitude pair or a physical address. For example, use center="Apple Park" to request a snapshot centered on Apple Park in California. Add query parameters Maps Web Snapshots can be further customized by adding query parameters to display different annotations and overlay styles, alternate map types, and a choice of light or dark color schemes to better match your embedded content. Create a Maps Web Snapshot Add map annotations To add one or more annotations, use the annotations parameter and include an array of JSON Annotation objects representing the bottom center-point of each. To place the default style, append annotations=["point":"37.33489990234375,-122.00901794433594"] to your snapshot URL. You can additionally customize an annotation object to alter its color, style, size, or add a custom image. Set the color scheme Using the colorScheme parameter, you can generate Maps Web Snapshots to match the content and the Appearance setting of a person's device. For example, to fetch and display a snapshot of Apple Park when the device is set to Dark Appearance, you can append colorScheme=dark to your snapshot URL. Choose your terrain To display a particular type of map, append the parameter with correct map value: standard, satellite, or hybrid. For example, to fetch the satellite rendition of the Apple Park map, append t=satellite to your snapshot URL. Explore Snapshots Studio Now that you understand the fundamentals of Maps Web Snapshots, the best way to become familiar with the full extent of capabilities is by experimenting with Snapshots Studio. Visit Snapshots Studio Start a snapshot To preview a snapshot, begin by selecting an address or point of interest and choose your desired image dimensions and language. Then, click the Show Snapshot button to see the default representation of your chosen location. To modify results, you can use the snapshot map preview to customize the default annotation, choose a map type, and set the zoom factor. Create your own snapshots Want to build embeddable Maps Web Snapshots? You’ll want to make sure you have the appropriate credentials. If you haven't already created a Maps ID and MapKitJS private key, here’s how to do so: Create a new identifier (Maps ID) in your developer account. Like a bundle ID, a Map ID is created in reverse domain name notation. *maps.* will be prepended to the string you enter. With your Map ID created, you’ll next create your MapKitJS private key. Create and register a MapKitJS Private Key in your developer account. First, enter a unique name in the Key Name field, select the checkbox next to MapKit JS, and click Continue. Pick the Configure button. You’ll link the key to the Maps ID you created previously by selecting it from the Maps ID dropdown menu. Click the Save button. Press Continue. Click Register on the next screen. When finished, click to download your MapKitJS Private key. Remember, after you’ve downloaded your key, it cannot be re-downloaded as the server copy is removed. Be sure to save a backup in a secure place. With your key downloaded, click the Done button and you’re ready to create your own Maps Web Snapshots. Learn how to create an identifier for your developer account Learn how to create and register a private key With the above credentials ready, head back to Snapshots Studio. Enter your developer team ID, MapKitJS key information, the domain you’ll refer the Snapshot from, then press the OK button to validate your credentials. After validation, click the Show Snapshot button one more time. Now, your map preview image will include a URL that can be placed on your website and linked to from wherever you wish. Explore Dynamic Snapshots While the generated Maps URL contains all the maps details you configured in Snapshots Studio, it’s actually a flexible template with customizable parameters you can adjust each time the snapshot is requested. To explore all the options you can customize, check out the Maps Web Snapshots documentation for more information. Maps Web Snapshots Learn more about MapKitJS Make the most of your Maps Web Snapshots By default, you can display up to 25,000 unique Maps Web Snapshots requests free with your Apple Developer Program membership. To avoid accesses that count toward your service limit, we recommend retrieving, storing, then embedding the rendered image rather than serve a link that retrieves the image at display time. If you need additional capacity for your implementation, please contact Developer Relations. Request a MapKit JS Capacity Increase

  • Upcoming Apple Developer certificate updates

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 22 Dec 2021 12:30:05 PST

    Starting January 27, 2022, intermediate certificate updates will be available for the Apple Push Notification service (APNs) and Developer ID. Apple Worldwide Developer Relations Intermediate Certificate (G4) APNs SSL certificates will be issued from a new intermediate certificate (Worldwide Developer Relations G4 sub CA) exclusively focused on APNs. Once the new certificate is active and available for download, you’ll be able to use it to send push notifications to apps (including VoIP), complications, websites on Safari, and Apple Wallet passes. Apple Developer ID Intermediate Certificate (G2) The digital certificates you use to sign your software and installer packages on macOS will be issued from a new Developer ID Intermediate Certificate that expires on September 16, 2031. Newly issued Developer ID certificates associated with the new intermediate certificate can be used to sign software on Xcode 11.4.1 and later. If you’re running Xcode 13.2 or later, the updated certificate will download automatically when you sign software after January 28, 2022. If you’re using an earlier version of Xcode, you can download the certificate manually or create certificates compatible with previous versions of Xcode. Your existing certificates will continue to function until expiration or revocation, whichever comes first. Learn about Developer ID Intermediate Certificate updates Learn about Developer Relations Intermediate Certificate updates

  • Swift Playgrounds 4 now available

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 15 Dec 2021 10:22:47 PST

    Swift Playgrounds is the best and easiest way to learn how to code. And with Swift Playgrounds 4, you have the tools to build iPhone and iPad apps right on iPad and submit them directly to App Store Connect, providing a new way for you to easily create apps and share them with the world. Code is immediately reflected in the live preview as you build apps, and you can run your apps full screen to test them out. A new open project format based on Swift packages can be opened and edited in Swift Playgrounds for iPad, as well as within Xcode on Mac, offering you even more versatility to develop apps across iPad and Mac. Learn more

  • Updated agreements now available

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 13 Dec 2021 11:16:13 PST

    The Apple Developer Agreement, Program License Agreement, and Schedules 1, 2, and 3 have been updated to provide clarification, and to support updated policies and upcoming features. Please review the changes below and accept the updated terms as needed. Program License Agreement Definitions and Sections 2.1, 3.3.1, 7.5, and 14.11: Specified requirements with respect to the use of Swift Playgrounds to develop applications. Definitions and Sections 3.3.56 and 3.3.57: Specified requirements and restrictions with respect to the use of Xcode Cloud. Section 3.2: Specified requirements and restrictions with respect to the use of the Apple Software and Apple Services. Sections 3.3.10, 3.3.14, and 3.3.37: Replaced pronouns with gender-neutral language. Section 3.3.39: Clarified requirements with respect to the use of the HealthKit APIs and the Motion & Fitness APIs. Section 6.6: Specified requirements with respect to the submission of app symbol information. Section 7.4: Clarified requirements and restrictions with respect to the use of TestFlight. Section 9.1: Deleted language that deemed Schedules 2 and 3 to be Apple Confidential Information. Sections 11.2 and 14.8: Clarified requirements for export compliance. Section 14.3: Updated information on how to submit a request for Apple’s consent to assignment. Schedule 1 Exhibit C: Replaced uses of "Custom Codes” with "Promotional Codes” and otherwise revised language to align with Promo Code functionality in App Store Connect. Replaced references to “country” with “region.” Schedules 2 and 3 (Paid Applications Agreement) Section 1.1: Added Legacy Contacts to the definition of eligible End-Users associated with an individual purchaser’s account. Section 1.2: Included Legacy Contacts in the list of users authorized to access a developer’s Licensed Application information and associated metadata saved onto the End-User’s account. EULA minimum terms: Added Legacy Contacts to the scope of the End-User license. Exhibit B: Added Barbados and Ukraine to list of countries where Apple collects and remits taxes. Exhibit C: In Section 5.1, clarified developers’ responsibility to appoint their own tax administrator in Japan. Apple Developer Agreement Section 16: Clarified requirements for export compliance. View all terms and guidelines

  • Upcoming price changes on the App Store in Turkey

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 08 Dec 2021 13:28:44 PST

    When taxes or foreign exchange rates change, we sometimes need to update prices on the App Store in certain regions and/or adjust your proceeds. In the next few days, prices of apps and in-app purchases (excluding auto-renewable subscriptions) on the App Store will increase in Turkey. Your proceeds will be adjusted accordingly and will be calculated based on the tax-exclusive price. Once these changes go into effect, the Pricing and Availability section of My Apps will be updated. You can change the price of your apps and in-app purchases (including auto-renewable subscriptions) at any time in App Store Connect. If you offer subscriptions, you can choose to preserve prices for existing subscribers. View the updated price tier charts

  • New features for App Store product pages now available

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 08 Dec 2021 09:28:08 PST

    You can now take advantage of two exciting new features that help you build more effective App Store product pages. Product page optimization. Try out alternate versions of your app's product page with different icons, screenshots, and app previews to find out which one gets the best results. Each version is shown to a percentage of randomly selected, eligible App Store users and results appear in App Analytics, so you can set the best performing one to display to everyone on the App Store. Custom product pages. Create additional versions of your app's product page to highlight specific features or content, discoverable through unique URLs that you share. Custom product pages can have different screenshots, app previews, and promotional text — and are fully localizable — so you can showcase a particular sport, character, show, gameplay feature, and more. Program members can get details and ask questions at the Tech Talks product page optimization session and custom product pages session. Learn about product page optimization Learn about custom product pages

  • Announcing the App Store Award winners

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 02 Dec 2021 08:00:57 PST

    Originally published December 2 on the App Store Today tab. For over a decade, we’ve taken a moment at the end of the year to celebrate the very best apps and games on the App Store. We’ve heralded the work of individual self-taught developers as well as huge international teams. With so many wonderful apps on the App Store, selecting just 15 award winners has been no easy task. As always, we put a focus on technical innovation, user experience, and design. Then we considered the impact these apps had on our lives. Some helped us learn, others enhanced our work, and one even let us save the world as our favorite superheroes. It’s our honor to celebrate this year’s winners. iPhone App of the Year: Toca Life World An interactive playground that continues to invent fun new ways for kids to explore, all while teaching self-expression and emotional growth with a refreshingly inclusive world of characters anyone can relate to. Download Toca Life World from the App Store iPhone Game of the Year: League of Legends: Wild Rift A landmark MOBA that transforms one of the world’s most popular and competitive PC games into a mobile experience everyone can enjoy. Download League of Legends: Wild Rift from the App Store iPad App of the Year: LumaFusion This easy-to-use video editor for both professional and aspiring creators gives you precision storytelling tools to make your feature-length films and social media videos truly cinematic. Download LumaFusion from the App Store iPad Game of the Year: Marvel Future Revolution A superhero brawler that makes everyone the star of their own cutting-edge superhero story, set against a backdrop of stunning graphics and exciting battles. Download MARVEL Future Revolution from the App Store Mac App of the Year: Craft A versatile note-taking app, word processor, and personal documents organizer all in one that makes productivity as intuitive, fun, and stylish as you are. Download Craft from the App Store Mac Game of the Year: Myst A remake that’s the most stunning version yet of one the most fascinating worlds in gaming history. Download Myst from the App Store Apple Watch App of the Year: Carrot Weather A best-in-class weather app with helpful customizations, built-in watch faces, and, of course, that satirical robot named Carrot, who laughs at us all. Download CARROT Weather from the App Store Apple TV App of the Year: DAZN A streaming app that simplifies the often challenging process of watching sports live and on demand, while serving up the best local games and matches to fans around the world. Download DAZN from the App Store Apple TV Game of the Year: Space Marshals 3 A space western with tense, tactical combat that’s even more gripping when played on the big screen. Download Space Marshals 3 from the App Store Arcade Game of the Year: Fantasian An epic that brings us back to the golden age of role-playing with an incredible art style and a fantastic soundtrack. Download Fantasian from the App Store Trend of 2021: Apps that brought us together Among Us! Connecting friends (and impostors!) all over the world through a wildly popular social game of whodunit. Download Among Us! from the App Store Canva Connecting us to our own entrepreneurial spirit with collaborative design tools and thousands of templates to make everything from your résumé to social media posts sparkle. Download Canva from the App Store Peanut Connecting women experiencing life milestones—from pregnancy to menopause and every moment in between. Download Peanut from the App Store Bumble Connecting users to social hubs for making friends, professional networking, and, of course, finding someone special, and it all grew from a women-powered shift in the dating dynamic. Download Bumble from the App Store EatOkra Connecting communities to Black-owned restaurants and food services with an innovative online marketplace, creating an invaluable guide to cities across the U.S. Download EatOkra from the App Store

  • Congratulations to the App Store Award winners

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 02 Dec 2021 00:00:48 PST

    Every year, the App Store celebrates exceptional apps that improve people’s lives while showcasing the highest levels of technical innovation, user experience, design, and positive cultural impact. Join us in celebrating the work of outstanding developers from around the world. View this year’s selections

  • Developer Spotlight: Watch Face by Facer

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 30 Nov 2021 06:00:06 PST

    Ariel Vardi’s road to launching Facer started a long way away. Mars, specifically. In 2015 he released the official Apple Watch game The Martian, based on the film starring Matt Damon. “You played directly from your wrist, interacting in real time with Damon’s character,” says Vardi. His game studio, Little Labs, started by developing watch games before moving over to Vardi’s other Apple Watch interest: design. Facer is now among the world’s largest open marketplaces for watch-face creators, with more than 30,000 of them sharing their wares — joined by traditional watch brands like Mr. Jones, AVI-8, and Maurice Lacroix. We spoke to Vardi from his L.A. home base to talk about bringing watch design to everyone and how to tell if an idea is truly original. With Facer, your watch face is a blank slate — one that can be designed any way you like. Who is Facer for? Facer was always intended to be an open marketplace; we would make tools to allow non-devs to create watch faces without writing a single line of code. Anyone with a bit of design sense can create a watch face in literally 30 seconds. The bulk of faces today are coming from indie designers. But fairly early on we partnered with brands like Star Trek, Tetris, and Garfield. What has this meant for the watch-design community? The traditional watch world has always been very closed. There’s a group, mostly coming out of Switzerland and a few other parts of the world, that have historically had the privilege to design watches. A lot of people have dreamed of designing watches themselves but couldn’t. The smartwatch and watch-face worlds have opened up that opportunity. How do you handle customer feedback for a community of Facer’s size? We don’t have a separate customer support team. I’m part of the customer support team! But we do have around a hundred designers in the watch-face community we chat with every day. If something’s broken, someone will hear about it. What’s your approach to creating new features? We try to resist the inclination to start building because something feels cool. What feels cool to an engineer is not necessarily what feels cool to regular users, and those are the people you’re building apps for. For any new product or feature, we sit down, write out what it is, and come up with proof for why it’s going to succeed. What advice do you have for developers who are just starting out? If a product makes sense to you, you’ve probably already got competitors. Smart people tend to have the same ideas; if you’re really the first, there’s a good chance you don’t have the right one. So think hard about what makes you truly different. It’s easy to say, “Oh, my product is going to be better,” but you need to find that specific differentiating point. If you’re not confident about it, think some more or find another idea. Download Watch Faces by Facer from the App Store Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

  • Tech Talks: final set of sessions and office hours now available

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 29 Nov 2021 08:30:43 PST

    Connect with Apple experts to learn how to create best-in-class apps through office hours and live sessions with Q&As until December 17. The final set of Tech Talks activities have been released, so register today if you're a member of the Apple Developer Program or Apple Developer Enterprise Program. Learn more

  • Tech Talks Digest: November 29

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 29 Nov 2021 08:30:03 PST

    It’s time for our fourth and final Tech Talks digest, and we’ve got one last round of sessions and office hours for you to peruse and enjoy. Tech Talks events are running through December 17 — don’t miss your chance to learn more about Object Capture or HealthKit, get your questions answered, and more. Explore the schedule You can currently browse and register for all Tech Talks activities taking place through December 17. Note: To register for sessions or request office hour appointments, you must be a current member of the Apple Developer Program or Apple Developer Enterprise Program. Get notified about new activities and your appointment requests by opting in to push notifications in the Apple Developer app or signing up for email notifications. To enable push notifications, visit the Account tab in the Apple Developer app. To enable email notifications, sign in to your developer account, open the top-right menu, and click Email Settings. One last time: Don’t miss a conversation with SwiftUI engineering The SwiftUI engineering team is hosting one last chat before the end of Tech Talks on December 14: Join members of the team for a full hour of live Q&A, dedicated to answering your queries and questions around all things SwiftUI. What sorts of questions can the team answer? Well, during November’s chat, we highlighted a SwiftUI debugging tool that helps track down rendering or high cpu usage issues: Check it out yourself by calling Self._printChanges() inside the body of a view to print out the changes that have triggered the view update. This session will be presented in English live from Cupertino on December 14. Don’t miss: Simplify 3D content creation with Object Capture On December 6, learn how you can best use the Object Capture API to create lifelike 3D models of real-world objects. The team will cover best practices with object selection and image capture to help you create 3D models, and share a peek at several top-notch content creation apps that use Object Capture to bring their assets to life. This session will be presented in English live from Cupertino and London on December 6 and December 13. Don’t forget: Explore the future of Photos access in your app Discover how PHPicker and the Limited Photos Library can provide your app with secure, private, and modern access to the Photos library. The session explores how you can integrate directly with someone's image library while ensuring privacy and giving people direct control over which pictures your app can access. Presenters will take you through recent improvements to PHPicker, the simplest and most secure integration for your app, and explore how to use the Limited Photos Library for experiences that need a deeper integration. And lastly, learn best practices for migrating off the deprecated ALAssetsLibrary APIs so that your app can continue to deliver a great, integrated experience with the Photos library. This session will be presented in English live from London and Cupertino on December 7 and 13. Share your thoughts Thank you for checking out Tech Talks 2021! Whether you attended a session, office hour appointment, or followed along through these digests, we'd love to know what you thought. Share your feedback on Tech Talks

  • Developer Spotlight: Coral

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 23 Nov 2021 06:00:08 PST

    Isharna Walsh was several years into a long-term relationship when she had a life-changing realization. “We’d hit that point where the sex sort of decreases,” Walsh says, “and I realized I had no idea how to consistently create intimacy, talk about sex, or navigate the things I was experiencing.” She started looking for resources and quickly discovered she was hardly alone — lots of people needed such help. “I had this light-bulb moment,” she says. “Improving this part of our lives flows into everything else; it’s foundational to our health and happiness.” Walsh partnered with a who’s-who of intimacy experts — including psychologists, therapists, educators, and researchers — to create Coral. The app uses science-based lessons, conversations, and guided meditations and exercises to help users deepen their intimacy. Walsh hopes that, on a bigger scale, Coral can help normalize sex and remove some of the baggage many people have around it. We caught up with the Los Angeles–based founder to chat about the advantages of being a first-time app creator and the challenges of being a groundbreaker. Through a series of simple questions, Coral walks you through the process of exploring intimacy. Coral tackles a subject that’s sensitive for a lot of people. How do you design for that? There’s a lot of nuance around sexuality and intimacy. It’s a very taboo topic, and there’s a deep vulnerability in opening up to someone intimately. But there’s also excitement and fun. In the design, we want to make you feel very safe, like this is a place where you’re going to be respected and seen. At the same time we want to make you feel curious. That’s a hard needle to thread. How do you ensure the app speaks to everyone? Personalization is one of our core guiding principles. Are you seeing content tailored toward people with vulvas or people with penises? Or toward people who are in relationships? We also have content versioned around what we learn about you. If you identify yourself as having experienced trauma, you’re going to see something a little different. Does your mission expand beyond intimacy? I’ve been really interested in mental health for years, and I see this as the biggest opportunity to drive change in the space. Sleep, nutrition, exercise, sex, and intimacy — they impact the way we feel on a daily basis. From a more holistic perspective, we’re trying to unpack a lot of the shame and baggage around a very natural and healthy aspect of our being. What’s been your biggest challenge? We’re trying to create something brand new. There’s no, “OK, here’s what a sexual self-improvement practice is.” We’re figuring all of that out. And there are issues around advertising policies: Are we a sex product, or are we mindfulness and psychology? Being a female founder in this context has its own challenges too. But we have a deep belief in the changes we’re making and the inevitability of our success. Maybe our path isn’t going to be as clear as some others, but I just know that this needs to exist. Where does the name come from? I love to scuba dive, and the first time I went diving I thought, “There’s a whole world here, but we never see it.” Sexuality is similar. It exists but is often hidden. You don’t really know what’s there until you go take a look. Download Coral: Relationship self-care from the App Store Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

  • Developer Spotlight: Halide Mark II

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 16 Nov 2021 06:00:34 PST

    Self-professed “photo nerds,” Ben Sandofsky and Sebastiaan de With built Halide to mimic the tactile feel of a professional-grade camera — and that meant focusing on every detail, right down to fonts that simulate the classic etched-in-metal look of traditional cameras. “We didn’t see any apps that did exactly what we wanted, like letting you dial in settings as you would with a DSLR or film camera,” says de With. “We wanted something more pro and elegantly designed.” Alongside iOS developer Rebecca Slatkin, the pair have turned Halide into one of the App Store’s most popular pro camera apps, bringing histograms, waveforms, color zebras, and RAW+JPEG capture to all. Spectre Camera, the team’s remarkable long-exposure app, was named 2019 iPhone App of the Year. We spoke with Sandofsky, Slatkin, and de With about overnight success and the challenge of being popular. Halide brings a full suite of manual options typically found on traditional cameras to iPhone and iPad. When did you decide to create Halide? de With: Ben slid into my Twitter DMs back in 2016. We interacted about photo gear and tech, then decided to make an app as a pure passion project. When we launched, I remember my mother saying, “There are a lot of camera apps out there.” But Ben and I had to scratch this itch. What’s been your greatest challenge so far? Sandofsky: When Halide started getting popular. People liked it so much more than we could have guessed. That got us to realize it could be a real business — and that we needed help. At the start, we’d have never imagined hiring someone else to help us with Halide and then Spectre. To have Rebecca on our team is a dream scenario. What did you have to learn to launch Halide? Slatkin: I didn’t know a ton about photography, so I faced a steep learning curve. But my dad was a professional photographer, and we had detailed, technical conversations about what he’s dedicated his life to. It’s been great to connect on that. de With: Rebecca made our app appeal to more than just hardcore photo nerds. She brings the perspective of someone who loves taking photos but hasn’t been shooting with a Leica M8 for a decade. We needed that. We’re making a pro-level app, but we want to be sure we’re still approachable for people as they grow as photographers. Can you share one of your most rewarding moments? Sandofsky: Sebastiaan curates photos submitted to us by users, and at the end of the year he makes a calendar just for the three of us. Looking through that calendar is wildly inspiring. To see people using what you made with friends to express themselves is one of the coolest things you can experience. What advice would you give to aspiring app developers? Slatkin: Trust yourself. Every time you feel overwhelmed or intimidated, know that things are within your reach. When I feel that way, I break things down into small problems. Sandofsky: Don’t get caught up in measuring yourself against others. Sometimes it’s luck, but people usually reach success after a lot of hard work. People who look like overnight successes have actually been working on their craft for 10 years. Everyone’s journey is different, and setbacks will happen. Just stay focused on what you want to do and why you want to do it. Download Halide Mark II - Pro Camera from the App Store Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

  • Tech Talks: third set of sessions and office hours now available

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 15 Nov 2021 09:00:41 PST

    Connect with Apple experts to learn how to create best-in-class apps. Tech Talks 2021 features office hours and live sessions with Q&As, so you can get your questions answered. We’ve updated the schedule with the third set of new content (including new office hours for App Store business and marketing), and the last set will be released in two weeks. Register today if you’re a member of the Apple Developer Program or Apple Developer Enterprise Program. Learn more

  • Tech Talks Digest: November 15

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 15 Nov 2021 00:00:55 PST

    It’s time once again for the Tech Talks Digest. We’ve got new sessions and office hours for you to explore, recaps for the events you missed, and a few tips on making the most of your office hours appointment. Check out the latest activities, which run through December 3. These sessions and office hours are designed to help you learn more about our latest technologies, get your questions answered, and receive one-on-one guidance. We’ll publish the final digest on November 29, highlighting updates to the sessions schedule, office hours signups, and more — so stay tuned! Explore the schedule You can browse and register for all Tech Talks activities taking place through December 3. We release new sessions and appointments for one-on-one office hours every two weeks, so check back on November 29 for the final round of activities through December 17. Note: To register for sessions or request office hour appointments, you must be a current member of the Apple Developer Program or Apple Developer Enterprise Program. Get notified about new activities and your appointment requests by opting in to push notifications in the Apple Developer app or signing up for email notifications. To enable push notifications, visit the Account tab in the Apple Developer app. To enable email notifications, sign in to your developer account, open the top-right menu, and click Email Settings. Get the most out of office hours Each Thursday, we offer office hours: 25-minute one-on-one appointments with a member of Apple’s Evangelism, App Review, Developer Technical Support, App Store Connect, or App Store Business teams. We encourage anyone who works on an app to apply for an appointment — especially if you’re a newer designer or developer. Each conversation is unique and tailored for you and your app, and all questions are welcome. We’ve put together a short guide to help you decide which kind of appointment is right for you. If you don’t receive an appointment, please consider requesting another one in the future and providing more detail in your request. Since we have a limited number of spots, we prioritize requests based on where we can be most helpful. Technology & Design Evangelism Apply if… You’re an engineer or designer and want advice and feedback on improving your app, or want a fresh take on your app’s experience. Prepare by… Including as much detail as possible in your request. Do you want feedback on specific technologies or areas within your app? Do you have general questions about adding a new framework or exploring a new design idea? If you’re asking about an existing app, make sure to include a link (or TestFlight invitation) to your app — this helps us explore your app in advance and make the most of our time together. If you’d like to share content during your appointment, make sure you’ve set up your computer for screen sharing. Learn how to set up your Mac for screen sharing Learn how to share your screen in a meeting During the appointment... We’ll discuss your goals, provide feedback, and answer any follow-up questions. Be prepared to show device screens or comps if needed. Developer Technical Support Apply if... You have code-level questions or an open Technical Support Incident (TSI) and want in-person guidance on resolving your problem. Prepare by... Providing a clear, detailed description of your issue or question in your request. If you have an open TSI, be sure to include your follow-up number to continue the conversation. If you plan to show an Xcode project, set the theme to Presentation Mode in the Xcode Font & Colors preferences. During the appointment... We’ll take a look at your issue and provide support to help find a resolution. App Review Apply if... You want to know how your app can best align with the guidelines, how to get ready to submit your app, or what to expect during review. Prepare by... Letting us know what you’d like to discuss in as much detail as possible, so we can assign your request to the right specialist. You may also want to take a look at the App Review page on the Apple Developer website. Learn more about App Review During the appointment... We’ll go over your questions and provide advice on how to help the review process go more smoothly. App Store Connect Apply if... You need insight into any feature of App Store Connect, such as configuring in-app purchases, beta testing with TestFlight, monitoring performance with App Analytics, and much more. Prepare by... Writing a descriptive request that helps us understand what you’d like to do in App Store Connect or what issues you’re running into. You may also want to take a look at App Store Connect Help on the Apple website. Learn more about App Store Connect During the appointment... We’ll go over your questions and provide support so you can move forward with distributing great apps and content. App Store Business & Marketing Apply if... You want to learn more about marketing, engagement, subscription models, or expanding to different international markets. Prepare by... Giving a thorough description of what you’d like to learn about so we can connect you with the right person. If you have an existing app, include a link (or TestFlight invitation) to help us explore your app in advance and make the most of our time together. During the appointment... We’ll review your goals and possible options — and provide guidance on how to choose what’s best for your app. Recap: Build smart app experiences with audio recognition and classification We had a bit of fun on November 8 when we hosted a miniature audio challenge, asking developers to recognize the audio signature of a song using Siri or Shazam. This challenge — which most of our audience successfully completed! — was part of a session that explored the technologies you can use to “listen” to the world. Afterward, evangelists and the Shazam engineering team hosted over an hour of Q&A about implementation, recognition, and great experiences with audio. If you missed this session, we're presenting it again live from London on November 22. And for more information on using audio classification models, check out "Train custom Core ML models within your app" on November 29. Don't miss: Explore the ingredients of a great AR experience Whether you have an app that uses augmented reality (AR) already on the App Store or you’re just starting to explore potential AR opportunities, this session can help you understand some of the key ingredients for creating a great experience on Apple platforms. First we'll show you how to craft an immersive onboarding flow, then we'll go over techniques that can help you blend digital content effectively with reality for compelling and persuasive interactions. Share your thoughts Have thoughts about Tech Talks? We’d love to know what’s on your mind. Share your feedback on Tech Talks

  • Developer Spotlight: S’moresUp

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 09 Nov 2021 06:00:46 PST

    There are many, many magical parts of being a parent. Assigning chores isn’t one of them. S’moresUp can help. The app democratizes household tasks by establishing an easy, simple-to-follow calendar for the whole family that makes it clear who does what and when — and lets parents offer rewards for going above and beyond. In the four-plus years since its launch, the app has helped more than 130,000 families spread the chores around — and not just to kids, according to founder Priya Rajendran. “The first feedback we got was ‘Why can’t I assign chores to my husband or partner? Why is it only for kids?’” laughs Rajendran. “We made changes to open it up to families of all kinds.” We caught up with Rajendran and cofounder Reeves Xavier to discuss the story behind S’MoresUp and why things seem to go wrong on birthdays. S’moresUp incentivizes tidying the kitchen, finishing homework, and keeping those teeth clean. How did you get the idea for S’moresUp? Rajendran: I was a divorced single mother with a daughter in seventh grade. I needed to figure out how to manage her time between two houses and how to bring consistency into her life. I thought, “Well, there’s an app for everything, I’ll look there.” I found a lot of apps that did one thing very well, but I never found one that did everything. What was the early feedback like? Rajendran: We had kids telling us, “We hate you! You’re making me do chores every day!” [Laughs.] What features of the app have you seen resonate? Xavier: For older kids, the financial-education side is gaining popularity. Kids can cash out their accounts, so they learn how to save toward a goal and how to spend smart. How has S’moresUp evolved since launch? Xavier: The family setup in the past 20 years has changed drastically, and we got constant feedback on that: “How do we bring in more people — a grandparent or a nanny? How do I make sure my son’s chores transfer to a parent in another home?” Also, we no longer ask for a name; all we need is a nickname and age so we can give you age-appropriate chores. What’s been your biggest challenge? Rajendran: The past two years, we’ve had a major production outage on the day before my birthday. It’s as if someone knew! Last year I was on the road, so I pulled over to call my team in India and troubleshoot on the fly. My team wished me happy birthday and then went back to sleep. We’re a small operation — when things go bad, you just have to roll up your sleeves and get to it. Download S'moresUp - Best Chores App from the App Store Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

  • Submissions now accepted through the holidays

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 08 Nov 2021 07:45:22 PST

    This year, we’re pleased to continue accepting submissions in App Store Connect throughout the upcoming holidays. Make sure your apps are up to date and ready for the busiest season on the App Store. Due to anticipated high volume, plan to send time-sensitive submissions early. Please note that reviews may take longer to complete from November 24 to 28 and December 23 to 27. Learn about submitting apps

  • Online group event in-app purchase requirement reminder

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 05 Nov 2021 13:08:55 PDT

    Last year, to support apps that adapted services from in-person to digital, we temporarily deferred the requirement to offer paid online group event services (one-to-few and one-to-many realtime services) through in-app purchase in accordance with App Store Review Guideline 3.1.1. In November 2020 we extended the deadline to June 2021, and in April 2021 we extended it again to December 31, 2021. These extensions were granted to support businesses and provide time for you to update your apps to comply with long standing in-app payment rules. As a reminder, new apps and updates offering these realtime one-to-few and one-to-many services must use in-app purchase by December 31, 2021, or they won’t be approved per guideline 3.1.1. Apps offering realtime person-to-person services between two individuals (for example, tutoring students, medical consultations, real estate tours, or fitness training) can continue using purchase methods other than in-app purchase. Learn about implementing in-app purchase

  • Test your Mac apps with TestFlight

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 03 Nov 2021 10:15:36 PDT

    You can now invite people to try out beta versions of your Mac apps and provide valuable feedback before release. Invite up to 10,000 external testers using their email address or by sharing a public link, create multiple groups of internal testers and configure build access for each one, and more. Learn about TestFlight

  • Developer Spotlight: Copilot

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 02 Nov 2021 06:00:15 PDT

    Andrés Ugarte is the type of person who’s always on the lookout for the perfect app to help him navigate life, but he never found one for managing his money. “I lost count of how many I tried,” he says. So in 2018 he quit his job as a software engineer and started working on Copilot. This privacy-first app lets you view details across all your accounts with a clear, colorful interface. Machine learning automatically categorizes spending to help you budget, while elegant charts make financial data — not always the zingiest of topics — easy to make sense of. We caught up with the New York–based founder to chat about when he knew Copilot was an idea he could bank on and why a CEO should always code. Copilot categorizes your transactions using machine learning (on your device, not in the cloud) to help you stick to a budget. How long did it take to launch Copilot? Roughly a year and a half. For the first six months, it was just me designing, prototyping, and building. We had seven users, and each week I would launch new features and send out an email. How did you persuade people to trust Copilot with their financial information? I’m wary of sharing my personal data, and that was one thing that bugged me with other apps: They’re free, but since the company has to make money, they’re selling your data. In the early days users told us, “Please don’t sell my data or put in ads. I’m willing to pay a few bucks for this service.” That was when we decided to charge a subscription, even though nobody really charges in this category. We can cover the cost of growing the business and building new features. What’s been your biggest challenge? In the early days, it was fundraising. I thought I was going to be able to fundraise with just an idea, honestly, but I got a lot of pushback: “People have done this. You’re wasting your time. Do you have any other ideas?” That’s why we started fully bootstrapped. But once we had a product — and with the type of love we get from users — the dynamic changed. From a technical standpoint, what else is key to the Copilot experience? We want you to open Copilot and feel like it’s a first-class app. I believe that having a native Swift app makes a difference the moment you start interacting with it. We invest a lot of engineering resources in crafting an experience you want to come back to. What’s it been like to go from software engineer to CEO? I still code. Not as much as I used to, but I believe that to be an effective leader, I need to stay close to that. Engineers and designers are often told they should focus on the technical aspects or the design and leave the rest to businesspeople. I believe that’s fundamentally wrong. We have a little bit of a superpower when it comes to understanding what goes into crafting a product that people want to use. At the end of the day, users can tell if you’re doing something with passion and love. Download Copilot: The Smart Money App from the App Store Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

  • New Tech Talks sessions and office hours now available

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 01 Nov 2021 10:00:03 PDT

    Tech Talks 2021 features live online sessions and office hours through December 17, so you can connect with Apple experts to learn how to create best-in-class apps. We’ve updated the schedule with new content, and will post more every two weeks. Based on your overwhelming response, we’re increasing capacity for all sessions and repeating our most-attended sessions. Register today if you're a member of the Apple Developer Program or Apple Developer Enterprise Program. Learn more

  • Tech Talks Digest: November 1

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 01 Nov 2021 09:00:47 PDT

    Welcome to the second Tech Talks Digest. After a fantastic start last week, we’re adding more sessions, more office hours, and — you asked for it! — more capacity. Check out our latest activities, which run through November 19. These sessions and office hours are designed to help you learn more about our latest technologies, get your questions answered, and offer one-on-one guidance. Due to popular demand, we’re re-presenting several of our most-attended sessions from last week. We’ve also increased the capacity of our sessions, and we’re offering two chances to sign up: We’re releasing half of the available spots today at 9 a.m., and the remaining half will be released at 11:59 p.m. PT to support developers worldwide. Did you miss a session, or want a recap of some of the highlights from week one? Read on to learn helpful tips from the SwiftUI team, find out the latest updates to App Clips, and answer the question: just how old is AVFoundation? We’ll publish a new digest every two weeks highlighting updates to the sessions schedule, new office hours signups, and more — so stay tuned! Explore the schedule You can currently browse and register for all Tech Talks activities taking place through November 19. We release new sessions and appointments for one-to-one office hours every two weeks, so check back on November 15 for the next round of activities. Note: To register for sessions or request office hour appointments, you must be a current member of the Apple Developer Program or Apple Developer Enterprise Program. Get notified about new activities and your appointment requests by opting in to push notifications in the Apple Developer app or signing up for email notifications. To enable push notifications, visit the Account tab in the Apple Developer app. To enable email notifications, sign in to your developer account, open the top-right menu, and click Email Settings. It’s back: A conversation with SwiftUI engineering Our SwiftUI engineers enjoyed answering your questions so much that they’re returning for another round! Technology Evangelist Betsy Langowski joins members of the SwiftUI engineering team to showcase some of the latest improvements to SwiftUI, explore the life cycle of a bug report, and answer your questions. This session will be presented in English live from Cupertino on November 16. Recap: Design delightful App Clips One of the first sessions we hosted was Design Evangelist Doug LeMoine’s “Design delightful App Clips,” which took developers and designers through some of the latest changes to App Clips. Doug covered October’s update to the App Store Connect API, exploring the new automated registration and maintenance process for both default and advanced App Clip experiences and the metadata requirements for creating an App Clip card. He also showed attendees how they could create multiple App Clip experiences using the bulk upload functionality. Doug also covered one of the most common questions we get around App Clips: What do I need to do to make my App Clip invocable from Maps? There are a few steps to follow, including using the Apple Business Registry to create a place association and releasing your App Clip on the App Store. For more details, check out the “Places on Maps“ page on apple.com. Places on Maps Missed “Design delightful App Clips“? We’ll present this session again live from Cupertino on November 16. We’ll also host this presentation in Japanese live from Tokyo on November 1, in English live from Tel Aviv on November 2, and in English live from Singapore on November 16. Recap: Create controls for Center Stage and Video Effects in your app Our Technology Evangelists and engineers came together on Wednesday with attendees from Bangladesh, Belarus, Canada, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Japan, Ukraine, and the United States to explore the Center Stage, Portrait mode, and Mic mode features available in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15. During the session, Evangelists Eric Hanson and Charlyn Keating explained how to best incorporate these features into your app, build in direct UI controls, and disable options when not appropriate for your experience. We also learned a fun fact about AVFoundation during the Q&A, when an attendee asked about the venerable framework's history. Did you know: AVFoundation premiered in 2008 with iOS 2.2 and came to the Mac in 2011 with OS X Lion! Its origins, however, lie in the QuickTime framework, QTKit, which launched as part of OS X Tiger back in 2005. We’ll present this session again in Japanese and Mandarin live from Tokyo and Shanghai on November 8 and November 15. Don’t miss: Explore interruptions, Time Sensitive notifications, and Focus Want to improve your app’s notification experience on iOS 15, macOS Monterey, and watchOS 8? We’ll help you learn how to craft meaningful moments through interruption levels and Time Sensitive notifications. And we'll also introduce you to Focus and Focus status, which allows your app to convey someone's availability to others. To get the most out of this session, we recommend having some experience with creating local and remote notifications. This session will be presented in English live from Cupertino on November 9, and presented in Japanese live from Tokyo on November 15. Share your thoughts Have thoughts about Tech Talks? We’d love to know what’s on your mind. Share your feedback on Tech Talks

  • SharePlay now available

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 28 Oct 2021 16:45:45 PDT

    SharePlay is now available in iOS 15.1, iPadOS 15.1, and tvOS 15.1, giving people the ability to share synchronized experiences right inside their FaceTime calls. You can submit your apps that support SharePlay today. It’s also enabled in macOS 12.1 beta, so you can now build SharePlay experiences across Apple platforms using the GroupActivities entitlement, without the need for the SharePlay Development Profile. Learn about SharePlay

  • App Privacy Report now available in beta

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 27 Oct 2021 16:45:02 PDT

    iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 introduced the Record App Activity feature, allowing people to save a summary of sensor, data, and internet access from apps on their device. This activity can be exported in JSON format by tapping Save App Activity. For an overview of recorded app activity, watch the WWDC21 session “Apple's privacy pillars in focus”. In iOS 15.2 beta and iPadOS 15.2 beta, this activity will be presented in a new UI called App Privacy Report. This is a great opportunity to review your app's sensor, data, and internet usage. To view your app's activity in the report, install the beta releases, then go to Settings > Privacy > App Privacy Report > Turn On App Privacy Report. Activity will show once you use your app. Learn about inspecting app activity data Learn about indicating the source of network activity

  • Developer Spotlight: OK Play

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 26 Oct 2021 06:00:30 PDT

    Built in collaboration with a team of child-development experts, OK Play’s interactive stories do more than entertain, says the app’s chief scientist, Colleen Russo Johnson: They give kids a space to express what they want and need. To do so, the inventive app makes children the stars. As they discover pirate treasure and encounter planet-size smoothies, they’ll record their own dialogue, color in scenery, and snap selfies to make each story character as unique as they are. We spoke with Russo Johnson and founder Travis Chen about the importance of emotional learning, why building a responsive development team is key, and how the app has helped families through difficult times. OK Play puts kids in the middle of the action (sometimes with a giant robot). How is OK Play different from other education apps for children? Russo Johnson: Starting with social-emotional learning was very intentional for us. As parents, we saw something missing in the apps our kids use. There’s a lot of ABCs and 123s and not a lot of focus on social-emotional learning. The way OK Play uses interactive technology lets kids place themselves in the stories — not just read about what it feels like to be mad or sad or happy, but actually act it out. They can see themselves making those faces. What learning curve did you have to overcome to launch the app? Chen: Well, Colleen wasn’t part of the group back when we first had the idea for OK Play. We all had our superpowers across product and play design, the business side and fundraising, but we didn’t have the skill set on the science of how kids build confidence, empathy, kindness. As soon as we met Colleen, there was no question that she was the superhero we were missing: someone who’d devoted their entire life — academically, professionally, and personally — to child development. What’s been the most rewarding feedback from OK Play’s audience? Russo Johnson: In our very early days of beta testing, a mother of two brought us to tears sharing what OK Play did for her children. This pandemic has been hard on all of us, and our stories were helping her daughters understand it’s OK to feel emotions in very real ways. She also shared how their faces light up when they see themselves as the stars of our stories, since, as an African American family, they rarely see characters who look like them onscreen. What’s a technical achievement that you’re particularly proud of? Chen: We’ve built our team and technical infrastructure to be able to update the app really quickly. In one story, a character falls down a well, and we got feedback from a parent that their kid was very scared when that happened. We updated the story so the character pops back up out of the hole, and we pushed it live within the day. To be able to respond so quickly and make our stories as inclusive as possible is something I’m really proud of. Any advice for fellow app developers? Chen: I think you need two very important things. One is to create ways to listen to and interact with your users, specifically to aid the development of your app. You don’t want it to be totally open-ended, because you could get flooded with feedback that can be hard to make sense of. Then second, you need a team and fundamental technical infrastructure that allows you to quickly adapt. These two go hand in hand. Once you get that user feedback, you need to move quick. Download OK Play from the App Store Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

  • Apple Entrepreneur Camp applications open for Black, Hispanic/Latinx, or female founders

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 25 Oct 2021 14:45:34 PDT

    Apple Entrepreneur Camp supports underrepresented founders and developers as they build the next generation of cutting-edge apps and helps form a global network that encourages the pipeline and longevity of these entrepreneurs in technology. Apply now for one of three newly announced online cohorts for Black, Hispanic/Latinx, or female founders starting late January 2022. Attendees receive code-level guidance, mentorship, and inspiration with unprecedented access to Apple engineers and leaders. Applications close on November 28, 2021. Learn more

  • App Store Review Guideline updates now available

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 22 Oct 2021 12:47:07 PDT

    The App Store is a safe and trusted place for customers to discover and download apps, and a great opportunity for developers. The following updates to the App Store Review Guidelines support new features in upcoming OS releases, better protect customers, and help your apps go through the review process as smoothly as possible. Added 2.3.13. “In-app events are timely events that happen within your app. To feature your event on the App Store, it must fall within an event type provided in App Store Connect. All event metadata must be accurate and pertain to the event itself, rather than the app more generally. Events must happen at the times and dates you select in App Store Connect, including across multiple storefronts. You may monetize your event so long as you follow the rules set forth in Section 3 on Business. And your event deep link must direct users to the proper destination within your app. Read In-App Events for detailed guidance on acceptable event metadata and event deep links.” Deleted from 3.1.3. “Developers cannot use information obtained within the app to target individual users outside of the app to use purchasing methods other than in-app purchase (such as sending an individual user an email about other purchasing methods after that individual signs up for an account within the app).” Added 5.1.1 (x). “Apps may request basic contact information (such as name and email address) so long as the request is optional for the user, features and services are not conditional on providing the information, and it complies with all other provisions of these guidelines, including limitations on collecting information from kids.” For full details, read the App Store Review Guidelines.

  • Bring your in-app events to the App Store

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 21 Oct 2021 10:15:11 PDT

    Starting next week, your in-app events can be discovered right on the App Store, giving you a whole new way to showcase your events and expand their reach. You can now create in-app events in App Store Connect and schedule them to appear on the App Store. These timely events, such as game competitions, movie premieres, and livestreamed experiences, can encourage people to try your app, provide existing users with new ways to enjoy your app, and give former users reasons to return. Events will appear on the App Store on iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 starting October 27, 2021. Learn about in-app events

  • Tech Talks Digest: October 20

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 20 Oct 2021 08:51:33 PDT

    Welcome to the Tech Talks Digest, where you can find everything you might want to know about our latest developer event. Tech Talks runs from October 25 to December 17, and features live sessions and one-to-one conversations where you can learn more about our latest technologies, ask questions, and get guidance from Apple experts. We’re excited to kick off Tech Talks with you on October 25. In the meantime, check out an overview of the event, learn how to register for sessions and office hours, and check out a few upcoming sessions that you won’t want to miss. We’ll publish a new digest every two weeks with the latest updates — stay tuned! Explore the schedule You can currently browse and register for all Tech Talks activities taking place October 25 to November 5. We release new sessions and appointments for one-to-one office hours every two weeks, so check back on November 1 for the next round of activities. Note: To register for sessions or request office hour appointments, you must be a current member of the Apple Developer Program or Apple Developer Enterprise Program. Get notified about new activities and your appointment requests by opting in to push notifications in the Apple Developer app or signing up for email notifications. To enable push notifications, visit the Account tab in the Apple Developer app. To enable email notifications, sign in to your developer account, open the top-right menu, and click Email Settings. Explore Tech Talks sessions Whether you want to know more about a technology released at WWDC or chat with the teams responsible for your favorite features, our live sessions can help you connect with Apple experts worldwide to get your questions answered. All Tech Talks sessions feature a live presentation to help you integrate the latest technologies into your apps followed by a Q&A or a roundtable. Note that sessions have limited capacity to make sure we can provide a great experience for live attendees and answer as many questions as possible. In addition to offering activities in English broadcast live from Cupertino, we’re also offering certain sessions in English, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish in local time zones. Apply for office hour appointments With office hours, we’re opening our virtual doors to connect with you for a one-on-one conversation. You can request appointments by topic, depending on your needs. Connect with our Design Evangelism team for UI reviews and design considerations, talk with a member of our Technology Evangelism about APIs and implementation, discuss your app with our App Review team, troubleshoot with Developer Technical Support, get help with app distribution from the App Store Connect team, or simply connect with us to provide feedback. Don’t miss: A conversation with SwiftUI engineering Hang out with some of the minds behind SwiftUI and learn how your bug reports can help improve Apple frameworks and APIs. Technology evangelist Betsy Langowski joins members of the SwiftUI engineering team to showcase some of the latest improvements to SwiftUI, explore the life cycle of a bug report, and answer your questions. This session will be presented in English live from Cupertino on October 25 at 1 p.m. PDT. Session spotlight: Get started with in-app events You’ll soon be able to publish your in-app events on the App Store: Learn more about this feature and how to make the most of it in a session delivered by members of the App Store team. Discover recommendations, tips, and best practices for helping people discover content or events within your app. This session will be presented in English live from Cupertino multiple times starting November 2 at 9 a.m. PDT. Share your thoughts Have thoughts about Tech Talks? We’d love to know what’s on your mind. Share your feedback on Tech Talks

  • Announcing Tech Talks 2021. Registration is open.

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 20 Oct 2021 08:50:43 PDT

    Join us for over 100 live online sessions and connect with Apple experts at office hours to help you create your best apps yet. Tech Talks kicks off on October 25 and runs through December 17. Registration is now open to current members of the Apple Developer Program and Apple Developer Enterprise Program. Learn more

  • Developer Spotlight: Caribu

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 19 Oct 2021 11:09:36 PDT

    According to Caribu cofounder Maxeme Tuchman, her app was inspired by one powerful image: a photo of a soldier reading to his child online while awkwardly holding up a picture book to the camera. So she set out to make it easy for children to read — and learn — with parents, grandparents, and friends from afar. With Caribu, a 2020 App Store Trend of the Year winner, kids can turn the pages of a Thomas the Tank Engine book, invite aunts and uncles to help with a math worksheet, or play a word game with cousins — all while interacting face-to-face over video. We caught up with Tuchman to talk about how Caribu has thrived without venture capital investment and why every founder should build a diverse team from day one. Caribu keeps a video chat window in view as kids and family members connect over puzzles, games, and stories. How did your background lead to creating a learning app like Caribu? I’m the daughter of Cuban immigrants and the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. It has been ingrained in me that the only thing you can take with you in the middle of the night when you’re fleeing your home is what’s in your head. To me, education is the biggest lever for change. What was the biggest challenge you faced when launching Caribu? Fundraising. Fewer than 2 percent of all VC dollars go to women and people of color. That’s an industry problem. We had a lot of people say, “If you don’t move to Silicon Valley, we’re not going to fund you.” But we’ve run through walls — we’ve figured it out through grants, angels, and corporate investment. What’s been essential to your success? The ability to see a problem and believe I could solve it. Throughout my career, I’ve constantly been pushed to go into new environments, learn new languages — the government uses a different language than MBAs, for example. That’s been the greatest gift. I’m excited to wake up every morning and think, “I don’t know what is going to happen.” What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs? Build a diverse team from the beginning. It’s the best business decision you will make. Don’t have a bunch of dudes making an app that may be used by 94 percent women. Don’t build a team that’s 95 percent men or white people and then think, “Oh, we should diversify.” Have your team reflect the people you serve. We have customers in 200-plus countries and territories. You have to have that empathy. How did you arrive at the name Caribu? Alvaro noticed many kids’ apps had animal-based names, so he looked at migratory animals and learned about the caribou — the Canadian reindeer. We spell it in Spanish because he’s from Spain and I’m Cuban. Also, it was easier to get the Twitter handle! Download Caribu: Playtime Is Calling from the App Store Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

  • Unlock the power of the new MacBook Pro

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 18 Oct 2021 16:58:43 PDT

    The most powerful MacBook Pro ever is here. With the blazing-fast M1 Pro or M1 Max chip your apps can take advantage of groundbreaking performance and amazing battery life. And along with a powerful Neural Engine for supercharged machine learning and upgraded media engines with ProRes support, the new MacBook Pro allows your apps to do things they never could before. Get your apps ready for the new supercharged MacBook Pro today. Build Universal apps with Xcode 13.1. To take advantage of the incredible performance of Macs with M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max, use Xcode 13.1 to build your Mac app as a Universal app. Xcode automatically creates a binary slice optimized for Apple silicon Macs and another for Intel-based Macs, then puts them together as a single app bundle thats ready to distribute or submit to the Mac App Store. Optimize for the new MacBook Pro display. The new MacBook Pro introduces a Liquid Retina XDR display that expands the active area of the display up around the new 1080p FaceTime HD camera. If your app delivers a full-screen experience and uses the default system menus, macOS Monterey automatically accounts for the area around the camera. If your app provides a custom full-screen experience or draws content over the menu bar, you may need to make a few adjustments to provide the best experience on this incredible new display. Learn about running your app in compatibility mode. Download Xcode 13.1 RC

  • Mac App Store submissions now open for macOS Monterey

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 18 Oct 2021 16:58:31 PDT

    macOS Monterey offers powerful features and technologies that help you deliver elevated user experiences. Take advantage of SwiftUI, new and improved APIs for apps built with Mac Catalyst, an unparalleled suite of advanced GPU debugging tools and new features in Metal, the power of Shortcuts on Mac, the new StoreKit In-App Purchase API, and ShazamKit. Build Universal apps with Xcode 13.1. To take advantage of the incredible performance of Macs with M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max, use Xcode 13.1 to build your Mac app as a Universal app. Xcode automatically creates a binary slice optimized for Apple silicon Macs and another for Intel-based Macs, then puts them together as a single app bundle that’s ready to submit to the Mac App Store. Update your product pages and submit your apps for review. Please note that if you’re updating to macOS Monterey, you’ll also need to update to Xcode 13 (compatible with macOS Big Sur 11.3 or later). Learn about submitting Mac apps

  • Upcoming tax and price changes for apps and in-app purchases

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 15 Oct 2021 10:00:55 PDT

    When taxes or foreign exchange rates change, we sometimes need to update prices on the App Store in certain regions and/or adjust your proceeds. In the next few days, prices of apps and in-app purchases (excluding auto-renewable subscriptions) on the App Store will increase in: Thailand: New value-added tax of 7% that applies to developers based outside of Thailand The Bahamas: New value-added tax of 12% Turkey Your proceeds will be adjusted accordingly and will be calculated based on the tax-exclusive price. Exhibit B of the Paid Applications Agreement has been updated to indicate that Apple collects and remits applicable taxes in these locations. Once these changes go into effect, the Pricing and Availability section of My Apps will be updated. You can change the price of your apps and in-app purchases (including auto-renewable subscriptions) at any time in App Store Connect. If you offer subscriptions, you can choose to preserve prices for existing subscribers. View the updated price tier charts

  • Watch the special Apple Event

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 12 Oct 2021 08:00:26 PDT

    Watch the replay from October 18 at apple.com. Watch the special Apple Event

  • New metrics now available in App Analytics

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 07 Oct 2021 09:40:00 PDT

    App Analytics in App Store Connect helps you see how people discover and engage with your app. Now you can view powerful new transaction metrics, including redownloads, total downloads, proceeds, pre-orders, and updates. Each metric can be displayed by territory, source type, device, and more, helping you understand what drives your app's growth and success. In addition, as of September 20, 2021, all sales metrics include data from Apple School Manager and Apple Business Manager, and from devices running iOS 7, macOS 10.14, tvOS 8, and earlier. Learn about App Analytics

  • Account deletion within apps required starting January 31

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Oct 2021 07:42:32 PDT

    The updates to App Store Review Guideline 5.1.1 last June provided users with greater control over their personal data, stating that all apps that allow for account creation must also allow users to initiate deletion of their account from within the app. This requirement applies to all app submissions starting January 31, 2022. We encourage you to review any laws that may require you to maintain certain types of data, and to make sure your app clearly explains what data your app collects, how it collects that data, all uses of that data, your data retention/deletion policies, and more as described in the guideline. Examples of this type of data include electronic health records, and sales and warranty records. Please also confirm that the app privacy information on your product page is accurate. View the guideline

  • New “Report a Problem” link on product pages

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 06 Oct 2021 07:40:03 PDT

    The App Store provides a safe and trusted place to discover apps that meet high standards for privacy, security, and content. Since its introduction, the App Store has supported a way for users to report problems with their apps and purchases, and to request refunds. Now App Store product pages on iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey display a “Report a Problem“ link, so users can more easily report concerns with content they’ve purchased or downloaded. This feature is currently available for users in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States, and will expand to other regions over time. In addition, users worldwide can now choose from “Report a scam or fraud” and “Report offensive, abusive, or illegal content” options at reportaproblem.apple.com, and report issues with their apps, including free apps that do not offer in-app purchases. Apple’s App Review, Discovery Fraud and Live Moderation, and Financial Fraud teams investigate reported problems for signs of fraud, manipulation, abuse and other violations of the App Store Review Guidelines, and will reach out to developers to resolve issues. Problematic apps diminish the App Store experience for users and developers, and we’re constantly expanding techniques to identify even more types of problematic content for removal. If we suspect that a developer has engaged in purposeful manipulation, fraud or abuse, we will notify them and take action. Consequences may include removal of apps and may impact their Apple Developer Program membership, as described in App Store Review Guideline 5.6. We are deeply committed to protecting users from problematic apps so that the App Store continues to provide an incredible opportunity for all developers.

  • Upcoming changes to recurring transactions via credit cards and debit cards in India

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 29 Sep 2021 12:22:34 PDT

    Starting in October 2021, regulatory requirements in India will apply to the processing of recurring transactions. The Reserve Bank of India has issued a directive that will affect purchases in India initiated via credit cards and debit cards for auto-renewable subscriptions. This directive requires banks, financial institutions, and gateways to obtain user approval by conducting transaction notifications, e-mandates, and Additional Factors of Authentication (AFA) before the transaction can be completed. As a result, some transactions that don’t meet these requirements will be declined by banks or card issuers. For more information and updates, see the Reserve Bank of India website. If you offer auto-renewable subscriptions in your app, you can do the following to help prevent or resolve declined transactions on the App Store: Promote paying with Apple ID. Users who pay with their Apple ID balance will not be impacted by these requirements at this time. Users can add funds to their Apple ID using most credit and debit cards, Net Banking, RuPay, and UPI. Provide a billing grace period. Enable Billing Grace Period in App Store Connect so subscribers with declined transactions or other payment issues have time to update their payment information while retaining access to your app’s paid content. There won’t be any interruption to the subscription’s days of paid service or to your revenue if payment is successful within the grace period. When an issue occurs, you can provide in-app messaging that lets the user know about it and mention available payment methods, such as Apple ID balance, so they can fix the issue and retain access. Learn about enabling Billing Grace Period for auto-renewable subscriptions.

  • Get ready for the new iPad mini display

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 27 Sep 2021 12:14:56 PDT

    The new iPad mini introduces a new screen resolution and aspect ratio with an edge-to-edge 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display, enabling even more immersive app and game experiences. If you’re following best practices with Auto Layout and size classes, your app’s interface will dynamically adapt to the new dimensions. However, if you’ve added UIRequiresFullScreen=YES to your app’s Info.plist in order to keep your app full screen during multitasking, you’ll need to recompile with Xcode 13 and the SDK for iPadOS 15 to take advantage of the full screen size. Test and submit your updated app in App Store Connect today. Download Xcode 13

  • New in-app purchase capabilities now available

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 22 Sep 2021 09:50:46 PDT

    StoreKit 2. StoreKit 2 introduces powerful new Swift-based APIs that make supporting in-app purchases and subscriptions easier than ever. You can now easily determine product entitlements and eligibility for offers, quickly get a user’s history of in-app purchases, find out the latest status of a subscription with one simple check, provide a way to request refunds and manage subscriptions from within your app, and more. StoreKit 2 also uses Swift concurrency and JSON Web Signature to simplify how you retrieve product information and handle transactions. Available on iOS 15, iPadOS 15, tvOS 15, and watchOS 8. App Store Server API. Support users and resolve in-app purchase issues more quickly with new App Store Server API now available in production. In-App Purchase History. Get a user’s history of in-app purchases. Subscription Status. Determine whether a subscription is active, expired, in billing retry, or in billing grace period. App Store server notifications. Coming soon. Get real-time updates on your in-app purchases, so you can create customized experiences for your users. You can now take advantage of new notification types that cover more user events, including subscription expirations, offer redemptions, refunds, and more. You can also enter an optional URL in App Store Connect to receive server notifications in the App Store sandbox environment, separate from the URL that you use for production. Learn about StoreKit 2 Learn about App Store server APIs Learn about App Store server notifications

  • Verifiable health records updates

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 21 Sep 2021 09:18:21 PDT

    With iOS 15, users can download and store verifiable health records, including COVID-19 vaccinations and test results, in the Health app. Verifiable health records in the Health app are based on the SMART Health Cards specification. Users can choose to share verifiable health records stored in the Health app with approved third-party apps requesting this information, like airlines, event venues, and other businesses that facilitate in-person interactions. And in an upcoming software update, they can also choose to add verifiable COVID-19 vaccination records as a vaccination card in Apple Wallet to present to businesses, venues, and more. Organizations that issue SMART Health Cards will soon be able to use a new button to let users know that they can securely download and store their vaccination information in the Health app and quickly add and present it from Wallet. Artwork and usage guidelines will be available soon. Learn about verifiable health records

  • Xcode 13 required on macOS Monterey

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 21 Sep 2021 09:16:37 PDT

    As you plan to update to macOS Monterey after the public release this fall, you’ll also need to update to Xcode 13 (which includes Xcode Cloud and the latest SDKs for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS). Xcode 13 is compatible with macOS Big Sur 11.3 or later. Learn about Xcode 13

  • TLS 1.0 and 1.1 deprecation update

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 21 Sep 2021 09:14:19 PDT

    Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a critical security protocol used to protect web traffic. It provides confidentiality and integrity of data in transit between clients and servers exchanging information. As part of ongoing efforts to modernize platforms, and to improve security and reliability, TLS 1.0 and 1.1 have been deprecated by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as of March 25, 2021. These versions have been deprecated on Apple platforms as of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS 12, watchOS 8, and tvOS 15, and support will be removed in future releases. If your app has enabled App Transport Security (ATS) on all connections, no changes are required. If your app continues to use legacy TLS 1.0 or 1.1, please make plans to transition to TLS 1.2 or later. We recommend supporting TLS 1.3, as it’s faster and more secure. Make sure your web servers support the later versions and remove the following deprecated Security.framework symbols from your app: tls_protocol_version_t.TLSv10 tls_protocol_version_t.TLSv11 tls_protocol_version_t.DTLSv10

  • New App Store marketing tools now available

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 16 Sep 2021 10:45:13 PDT

    You can now easily create custom marketing assets — such as banners and images — to promote your apps on social media and more. Simply select your app, choose a template, customize your design, and add preset messages in multiple languages. Your assets will be available instantly in all the right sizes, making sharing easier than ever. You can also continue to use these App Store marketing tools to create short links or embeddable code that lead to your App Store product page and display your app icon, a QR code, or an App Store badge. View marketing tools

  • App Store submissions now open for iOS 15 &amp; iPadOS 15

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 14 Sep 2021 12:22:37 PDT

    iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, the world’s most advanced mobile operating systems, will soon be available to customers worldwide. Improve your app’s performance by refactoring your code to take advantage of asynchronous functions in Swift. Use SwiftUI to enhance your apps with new features, such as improved list views, better search experiences, and support for control focus areas. Take advantage of new notification APIs, offer Safari Web Extensions, and much more. Build your apps using Xcode 13 Release Candidate, test them on devices running iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 Release Candidates, and submit them for review. Starting April 2022, all iOS and iPadOS apps submitted to the App Store must be built with Xcode 13 and the iOS 15 SDK. Learn more

  • App Store submissions now open for watchOS 8

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 14 Sep 2021 12:21:35 PDT

    Deliver even more powerful and personal apps for Apple Watch with the new capabilities of watchOS 8. With the Always-On Retina Display, your apps are always available at a quick glance. Gather HealthKit data and connect to Bluetooth peripherals in the background, delivering up-to-date information to your complications. AssistiveTouch makes your apps more accessible than ever. And the powerful new SwiftUI Canvas API lets you take advantage of the GPU in Apple Watch for rich programmatic drawing. Build your apps using Xcode 13 Release Candidate, test them on devices running watchOS 8 Release Candidate and submit them for review. Starting April 2022, all watchOS apps submitted to the App Store must be built with Xcode 13 and the watchOS 8 SDK. Learn more

  • App Store submissions now open for tvOS 15

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 14 Sep 2021 12:20:45 PDT

    With the tvOS 15 SDK, you can let people sign in to your app and authorize purchases using Face ID or Touch ID on their iPhone or iPad. A redesigned playback UI provides users with convenient access to relevant controls and information while always focusing on the content. MusicKit makes it easy to integrate Apple Music into your tvOS apps using Swift. And the App Attest API helps validate the integrity of your app before your server provides access to sensitive data. Build your apps using Xcode 13 Release Candidate, test them on Apple TV running tvOS 15 Release Candidate, and submit them for review. Learn more

  • California streaming.

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 14 Sep 2021 10:00:37 PDT

    Watch the replay from September 14 at apple.com. Watch the replay

  • Developer Spotlight: Prêt-à-Template

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 01 Sep 2021 10:17:25 PDT

    It wasn’t long after Prêt-à-Template founder and CEO Roberta Weiand launched her app in 2014 that it became a darling among fashion designers around the world. With its library of templates, textures, and patterns, the app lets anyone sketch their dream outfit. Start with the outline of a model (there are dozens of body types to choose from). Add an article of clothing—whether a cropped jacket or an A-line dress. Then let your imagination run wild by using true-to-life brushes, textile patterns, and more to bring the details of your vision to life. We spoke to Weiand about her inspiration and how users are finding their creativity in the app. Paint with patterns, textures, and colors to make each design your own. What inspired you to create Prêt-à-Template? I went to university for fashion design, and after graduation I taught at a university in my hometown. But I always had a problem: I didn’t know how to design on a big scale on the big whiteboards. I started to download many design apps, but I couldn’t find any related to fashion. So I thought, why not create one? What has the response been like? Many people don’t take fashion courses because they don’t know how to draw, but they tell us that the app makes it much easier to develop an idea. It streamlines the prototyping process as well. How has the app evolved since launch? We have many body templates. We heard from a student who was passionate about dwarfism and she asked us why we didn’t have those templates in the app. We started to research, and with her help we created them. What’s next for Prêt-à-Template? We’re working to make it feel more alive. We also develop Prêt-à-Makeup, and in that app we have a lot of realism in the brushes; if you turn the iPad, you can see the light changing. We’re going to borrow the realism we started in that app for Prêt-à-Template’s textures. What advice do you have for aspiring developers? Look for something that has meaning in your life, that solves a problem. Form a good team that believes in the same things as you. Always be open and listen to your users — nothing is more valuable than what they have to contribute. Download Prêt-à-Template from the App Store Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

  • Introducing the News Partner Program

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 26 Aug 2021 13:05:21 PDT

    Enrollment is now open for the News Partner Program, designed for subscription news publications that provide their content to Apple News in Apple News Format. Publishers that work with Apple News may qualify for a commission rate of 15% on qualifying in-app purchase subscriptions from day one. The program is available to Apple Developer Program members globally. Learn more

  • Developer Spotlight: Puppr

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 25 Aug 2021 11:53:10 PDT

    If Loki the sheepdog hadn’t been so smart — or if his owners had a backyard — the dog-training app Puppr might not exist. Developers Michael Gao and Alice Mongkongllite got their first dog when they were newlyweds living in a Los Angeles apartment. “A good way to keep him engaged was to teach him tricks,” Gao says. “Loki’s supersmart and would pick up things quickly.” But training Loki to behave in their pet-friendly offices was more challenging. They didn’t want to have to lug around a book or a clicker, explains Gao. “We thought we could solve our own problem by making something with videos, a community, and the ability to track our progress.” Puppr’s lessons, created with celebrity dog trainer Sara Carson, range from basics to circus tricks. There are community photo challenges (because who doesn’t like to share dog pics?), and subscribers can turn to Carson for answers and advice. We spoke to Gao and Mongkongllite about the power of cold-calling and taking things one step at a time. Puppr can help teach your pet to shake hands, cross paws, and maybe even say hi. How much experience with apps did you have before Puppr? Gao: Alice and I met in college at UCLA, where I majored in computer science and she studied design and media arts. We’d published two games when we were traveling around China for a few years after college. We would spend half the day working out of coffee shops and the rest of the day exploring the city. How did you connect with celebrity dog trainer Sara Carson? Mongkongllite: When I searched for tags like “dog training” and “dog tricks,” Sara’s videos came up. The things her dogs could do blew my mind. So we DMed her. Gao: She said, “I’m actually headed up to L.A. this weekend.” Later we found out she was there to audition for America’s Got Talent. The deadline for Puppr’s release ended up being defined by the airdate for her episode. What was your biggest challenge in building Puppr? Mongkongllite: The photography and the editing took a lot of time. We bought this really cheap green screen, and I ended up having to take the green out of Sara’s hair. And the fur—the fur! What’s your biggest challenge today? Mongkongllite: Balancing mom life and work life. Time management is difficult. If you could go back in time, what advice would you give to your younger selves? Gao: Build momentum. One of my early goals was to work on Puppr every single day, even if it was just writing one line of code. Without that, I think we wouldn’t have been able to ship when we did. Download Puppr from the App Store Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

  • Additional banking information required in App Store Connect

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 23 Aug 2021 10:00:42 PDT

    Due to changes in local regulations, the bank account holder’s address is now required if you have bank account information in App Store Connect. Account Holders, Admins, and Finance roles can now provide a valid address in the Agreements, Tax, and Banking section. Please provide this information by October 22, 2021, in order to avoid a potential interruption of your payments. Learn more

  • Developer Spotlight: The Dyrt

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 18 Aug 2021 09:59:18 PDT

    Sarah Smith, an avid camper and cofounder of The Dyrt, was frustrated by how hard it was to find details on a campsite before you booked. She wanted to know that, say, site 2 was next to a busy road, while site 7 was along a river. She wondered why nobody seemed to be solving the problem. Then she had a thought that changed everything: “Why can’t I do it?” she says. Four years later she launched The Dyrt to help nature lovers find and review campsites all over the country. Last year members planned more than 55 million miles of trips. We caught up with Smith to chat about transitioning from education to technology, the importance of starting slow, and why it pays to learn on the fly. The Dyrt can point you to the perfect campsite. Before creating The Dyrt, did you have any tech background? None whatsoever! I was in education. My cofounder and husband has a background in tech and apps, but he didn’t come on board until I had already built something. Were any of your skills from your career in education transferable? I did have one skill from my 10 years of living abroad and helping students study abroad: adaptability. When I think of every job I’ve done for The Dyrt — from scribbling out wireframes to figuring out a payroll system to creating more strategic partnerships — it’s always about being flexible while keeping the end goal in mind. How long did it take to bring The Dyrt into the world? We did it pretty slowly at the beginning. I built a rudimentary beta version of the website in WordPress in 2014, and a better beta the next year. In 2015, we started raising money and hiring people. But our first app didn’t come out until March 2017. It took years for something I thought would take not that long. What was the trickiest part? It’s not hard to create a directory of campgrounds, but it is hard to create a platform that people want to contribute to. We did it by incentivizing people through contests: We choose the top reviewer from each region and work with brands to give prizes. But getting brands involved was challenging at first; we started talking to them before we had a website launched, so they had to believe in the dream. What advice would you give to other aspiring developers? Start small and iterate. I can’t say I knew that when I started — I couldn’t afford to do it any other way at the time. But I did have a hunch that I shouldn’t put my life savings into this until I had an idea that other people wanted this problem solved too. Download The Dyrt from the App Store Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

  • SharePlay release schedule update

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 17 Aug 2021 10:00:44 PDT

    SharePlay has been disabled for use in the developer beta 6 versions of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and tvOS 15, and will be disabled in the upcoming beta 6 release of macOS Monterey. SharePlay will also be disabled for use in their initial releases this fall. SharePlay will be enabled for use again in future developer beta releases and will launch to the public in software updates later this fall. We’re thrilled with the high level of enthusiasm we’ve seen from the developer community for SharePlay, and we can’t wait to bring it to users so that they can experience your apps with their friends and family in a whole new way. We appreciate how many teams have been hard at work building SharePlay experiences and to ensure there is no interruption in your development, we have provided a SharePlay Development Profile which will enable successful creation and reception of GroupSessions via the Group Activities API. If your team plans to submit an update to your app for the initial release of these platforms, please remove the GroupActivities entitlement. We will provide guidance when SharePlay is re-enabled in a future developer beta, at which point we encourage you to include the GroupActivities entitlement in your code. Download the SharePlay Development Profile

  • Developer Spotlight: Revry

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 11 Aug 2021 07:00:56 PDT

    In five years, Revry has gone from an idea among friends to the biggest LGBTQ+ streaming service on the App Store, with a huge library of original movies, shows, music, and podcasts — and it’s growing by the day. Founded in 2016 by Damian Pelliccione, Alia Daniels, LaShawn McGhee, and Christopher Rodriguez, Revry began as a bare-bones operation but is expanding quickly. In the past 18 months alone, the team has doubled in size to 30 employees. We caught up with Pelliccione on the set of House of Pride, the app’s new variety show, to talk about the power of street marketing and what true representation looks like. Stream new movies, classic series, and exclusive live shows by LGBTQ+ creators. Revry is now an industry leader in LGBTQ+ media, but in the early days, how did you get the word out? Before we launched, we hit the streets in San Francisco the Saturday before Pride; we had printed T-shirts and obnoxious giant flyers, and we were going around demoing the app. We weren’t the best at it, but people would ask us, “Are you in street marketing?” and I’d say, “No, I’m the CEO, that’s the CBO, that’s our CFO.” By the end of the weekend we had done interviews with Macworld and Oakland TV. How do you find new talent and content to grow Revry’s library? We’ve traveled to film fests from Brazil to Israel to Mumbai; we scour YouTube for great videos we want to license. Right now I’m walking around the soundstage of our variety show in L.A.; we’ve got 25 influencers and musicians and comedians and drag queens. Can you tell us about the team behind Revry? We represent so many communities: immigrants, nonbinary people, Hispanic people, African Americans, LGBTQ+, veterans. I’m proud to say that over 65 percent of our staff are people of color, and almost 70 percent are women. In the special I’m working on today, our director is female, and our producer is a trans male. That’s not forced — that’s organic. This is what representation looks like, and it starts with ownership and it starts with leadership. A sample of Revry’s incredible well of content. What advice would you give to other aspiring entrepreneurs? Fail fast and learn big. Those failings are your school — that’s life teaching you how to succeed. When you’re ready to receive the world, the world will be there to give itself to you. What’s been your most inspiring moment? I still have a letter from a queer kid in Saudi Arabia who wrote to say, “I identify as gay, and I never knew this community existed until I downloaded your app. For the first time in my life, I saw myself represented.” That’s not the last letter we’ve gotten like that, but it was the first. It’s framed and on a coffee table in my office. That’s my inspiration for going to work; it’s like winning an Academy Award over and over and over again. Download Revry from the App Store Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

  • Challenge: Solution to “Memgraph Capture The Flag”

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 10 Aug 2021 09:00:54 PDT

    The “Memgraph Capture the Flag” challenge invites you to learn and practice memory debugging and symbolication with command line tools. If you haven’t yet attempted the challenge or otherwise don’t want to be spoiled on the necessary steps to complete it, we recommend returning to the original challenge page. Otherwise, read on! WWDC21 Challenge: Memgraph Capture the Flag One of our engineers has hidden a memory easter egg in our secret app. We need your help to find it. The challenge begins with the following: “One of our engineers has hidden a memory easter egg in our secret app. We're trying to track it down but all we know is that it has format flag_<unknown_string_here>@WWDC. You’ll have to use the command line tools offered by macOS to investigate the memory issue, recover missing symbols, and and capture the rogue flag.” The following solution is one of the possible paths to capture the flag. To start, the challenge article supplies you with a memgraph file and a dSYM, along with the following hint: “Memgraph is a special binary plist. What can you find in its properties?” To look at the properties of a Memgraph, use plutil. In the output, you’ll find more hints: $ plutil -p secret.memgraph ... "hint" => "the flag is hiding in a memory leak" ... "one_more_hint" => "you might also want to explore the 'symbols' in the dSYM” ... The hint invites you to investigate the memory leak, while one_more_hint directly encourages you to use the symbols CLI tool. In the WWDC21 session “Symbolication: Beyond the basics,” engineer Alejandro Lucena mentions that it’s a good idea to specify the architecture with this tool. As such, you can use the memgraph to learn the “secret” app’s architecture. You can try heap, leaks or vmmap. When used with a memgraph, the first few lines are the same in the output of each of these tools. This is how you learn which architecture the “secret" process uses: Code Type: X86-64. As detailed in the WWDC21 session “Detect and diagnose memory problems,” you can use the vmmap command against memgraph files in addition to targeting the running process. Running it agaisnt this memgraph provides the following information: $ vmmap -summary secret.memgraph Process: secret [2901] Path: /Users/*/secret Load Address: 0x10d264000 Identifier: secret Version: 0 Code Type: X86-64 Platform: macOS Parent Process: zsh [1438] ... Now you’re ready to use the symbols command. Use the -noSources option to restrict the output to symbol names so you have less output to look through. Hidden amidst the symbols in the “secret” dSYM, you’ll find another breadcrumb towards the solution: $ symbols -arch x86_64 -noSources secret.dSYM [macOS Monterey+, Xcode 13+] or $ symbols -arch x86_64 -noSources secret.dSYM/Contents/Resources/DWARF/secret [macOS before Monterey, Xcode before 13] ... hint_find_the_secret_addresses_of_the_memory_leak ... The leaked memory in this memgraph is definitely starting to sound interesting — it’s probably a specific leaked address. Let’s see which secret addresses the hint is referring to. To determine if the “secret” app was leaking memory, you can check the memgraph for leaks with the leaks command line tool. You’ll want to pay attention to this portion of the output: $ leaks secret.memgraph ... STACK OF 5 INSTANCES OF 'ROOT LEAK: <CFArray>': 6 hint 0x7fff204edf3d how would you translate secret Addresses TO Symbols? + 1 5 secret 0x10d267ee8 0x10d264000 + 16104 4 secret 0x10d267dc5 0x10d264000 + 15813 3 secret 0x10d267ccf 0x10d264000 + 15567 2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x7fff2059576f __CFArrayCreateInit + 190 1 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x7fff2054df07 _CFRuntimeCreateInstance + 587 0 libsystem_malloc.dylib 0x7fff20314071 _malloc_zone_malloc + 242 ... In this output, you’ll spot five leaks, all of which originated from the same place in code. They are united by the same call stack backtrace each time a CFArray was allocated, but never freed. You’ll find three secret addresses here — 0x10d267ee8, 0x10d267dc5 and 0x10d267ccf — along with a new hint sporting some interesting capitalization. This clue hints that you should try and use atos tool to symbolicate the secret addresses. To call atos, you need several components: The DWARF binary in the dSYM, architecture, and addresses to symbolicate. You’re missing the load address, however, and can find it for the “secret” binary image within the call stack of the leaks next to all three secret addresses: 0x10d264000. You can also find it in the the process description and list of binary images portions of the leaks output: $ leaks secret.memgraph Process: secret [2901] Path: /Users/*/secret Load Address: 0x10d264000 ... Binary Images: 0x10d264000 - 0x10d267ff7 +secret (0) <6676D338-8C26-3019-B919-88C1CB4AA324> /Users//secret ... Now, you can use atos to translate the secret addresses to symbols: $ atos -o secret.dSYM/Contents/Resources/DWARF/secret -arch x86_64 -l 0x10d264000 0x10d267ee8 0x10d267dc5 0x10d267ccf main (in secret) (main.m:226) very_nice_function (in secret) (main.m:205) good_job_but_the_flag_is_inlined (in secret) (main.m:186) You’re getting close: The flag is inlined, so you need to add the -i command line option while calling atos to display the inlined functions too: $ atos -o secret.dSYM/Contents/Resources/DWARF/secret -arch x86_64 -l 0x10d264000 0x10d267ee8 0x10d267dc5 0x10d267ccf -i main (in secret) (main.m:413) very_nice_function (in secret) (main.m:392) IGZsYWdfbWVNMHJ5VDBPTHNEZWJ1R0cxbmdQcjBAV1dEQyAg (in secret) (main.m:86) whats_wrong_with_encoding (in secret) (main.m:204) omg_you_found_it (in secret) (main.m:333) good_job_but_the_flag_is_inlined (in secret) (main.m:373) Closer still! Run this command and you’ll get a string of gibberish that looks like it might be base64-encoded. Run that decode and you get: $ echo "IGZsYWdfbWVNMHJ5VDBPTHNEZWJ1R0cxbmdQcjBAV1dEQyAg" | base64 -d flag_meM0ryT0OLsDebuGG1ngPr0@WWDC % As a note: Make sure you also pass the -arch flag to atos, because atos defaults to the architecture you're actively using. For example, if you run this command from x86_64 (either on x86 hardware or in Rosetta 2), you won't see any change. But if you run the tool from an Apple Silicon machine without the -arch flag, you'll get strings delivered for the wrong architecture: IOKdmuKWiOKVkOKVkOKWiOKdmiAg4p2a4paI4pWQ4pWQ4paI4p2a (in secret) (main.m:396) IOKWhyDiloUg4paIIOKWhSDilocg4paCIOKWgyDiloEg4paB (in secret) (main.m:381) Convert those from their base64 encoding, and you'll get some very pretty ASCII art weights. ❚█══█❚ ❚█══█❚ ▇ ▅ █ ▅ ▇ ▂ ▃ ▁ ▁ While these might be helpful for filling the fitness rings on your Apple Watch, you need the -arch x86_64 parameter to capture this particular flag. One last tip: The secret.memgraph was generated when the “secret” process was running with MallocStackLogging enabled; this allows you to see the call stack of the leak. Don’t forget to enable MallocStackLogging for your own app when generating memgraphs. This can be done in the scheme settings in Xcode (Run > Diagnostics > MallocStackLogging = Live Allocations Only) or with the environment variable when launching from a terminal: `$ MallocStackLogging=lite <command>` This is just one path you can follow to get the flag using the command line tools built into macOS for memory debugging and symbolication. Check out the full repository of Coding and Design Challenges for other fun coding and design explorations, or dive deeper into debugging with our most recent WWDC21 videos. Resources WWDC21 Symbolication: Beyond the basics Discover how you can achieve maximum performance and insightful debugging with your app. Symbolication is at the center of tools such as Instruments and LLDB to help bridge the layers between your application’s runtime and your source code. Learn how this process works and the steps you can take... WWDC21 Detect and diagnose memory issues Discover how you can understand and diagnose memory performance problems with Xcode. We’ll take you through the latest updates to Xcode’s tools, explore Metrics, check out the memgraph collection feature in XCTest, and learn how to catch regressions using a Performance XCTest. Explore more coding & design challenges

  • Behind the Design: Pok Pok Playroom

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 09 Aug 2021 09:00:12 PDT

    When the husband-and-wife team of Esther Huybreghts and Mathijs Demaeght first began dreaming up Pok Pok Playroom, they made a solemn vow: parents shouldn't need to mute the app in a restaurant. “We didn’t want media and jingles and jangles that get stuck in your head,” Huybreghts laughs. “We wanted a quieter experience.” To the delight of dining parents everywhere, they got it: Their inventive children’s sandbox is a quiet feast for little senses. There are switches to flip, gears to grind, blobs to plop together, and bells to ring — and those are just a handful of the animations designed to make the app feel like a tactile, handmade toy. Huybreughts and Demaeght began their careers in the film and game design worlds before finding work with the independent Canadian studio Snowman (creators and producers of titles like Alto’s Odyssey and Alto’s Adventure as well as Where Cards Fall and Skate City for Apple Arcade). The duo began pondering developing an app for young children after they struggled to find the right kind of experience for their own kids. “We didn’t want anything loud and overstimulating,” Huybreughts says. “We wanted something quieter and educational, and we really didn’t find anything that checked all those boxes.” Instead, they decided to try and check those boxes themselves, building Pok Pok Playroom on the side with frequent input from the duo’s own in-house play-testers before eventually joining forces with their employers at Snowman. (The Snowman team loved the spirit of the app so much that they spun out a separate company, Pok Pok, focusing solely on educational children’s entertainment.) Huybreghts and Demaeght carefully designed the app’s digital toybox atmosphere to both fire up children’s minds and leave space for them to fill in details with their own imaginations. “Kids develop differently, and everyone who plays Pok Pok approaches it with a different mindset,” says Huybreghts. “That’s the wonderful quality of open-ended play. There’s something new to discover every time.” To perfect the app’s handcrafted look, Huybreghts dove back into her own art and animation history. “I’ve been drawing my whole life,” she says, “but it’s always been more on the sketchy side. Give me a pencil and a napkin and I’m happy,” she laughs. Huybreghts struggled to find Pok Pok’s look for some time, long enough that her husband stepped in to issue a nautical challenge. “Mathijs held up this toy boat that was lying around our living room among the millions of other toys and said, ‘OK, Esther, stop stressing about it. Use only these three colors: red, yellow and blue.” As a lifelong creative, Huybreghts was duly horrified. “I was like, ‘I can’t do that!’” she laughs. “How would I even draw a tree?” But the little boat (and its guidelines) proved inspiring. The new strategy — a mix of free play with friendly guidelines — also gave her room to experiment. “I didn’t want the artwork to be perfect, because that would mean I’d have to animate everything perfectly. The rule was that everything could jitter a little bit, which took a lot of the pressure off me. Making everything too clean and too nice would have been too much work, especially since it was often just me drawing with one hand with a baby in the other.” (Fun fact: All of Pok Pok’s designs began as iPad sketches.) With the visuals in motion, the challenge of matching audio fell to sound designer Matt Miller, who ended up recording every sound in the playroom: all the sloshing mops, sizzling grills, and wordless dialogue. “The idea was to create calming sounds,” says Miller, “something that could be heard a number of times without becoming fatiguing.” Initially, Miller and Demaeght wanted to use a small number of real-world objects, but they quickly realized that the app’s thousands of animations required a broader arsenal of sounds — so Miller went on a hunt. “I got wooden blocks, pots from the kitchen, stuff I bought at a local thrift store,” Miller says, pointing to a boxes of “Foley objects” in the background of his home studio. “I’d just walk into a music store and start pinging on things.” His biggest challenge came in the app’s “musical blobs” section, an abstract playspace of movable shapes not unlike that lava lamp you had in college. “We wanted to do something musical,” Huybreghts says, “but every kids’ app that musical has a figurative aspect, where it’s a person or animal singing or using visual recognizable instruments.” The answer lay in the abstract. “A musical blob is a completely new idea,” Miller says. “A lot has to come together for that to work.” For instance: The color blue is always a C, while circles (the simplest of shapes) are represented by a single sine wave (the simplest of sounds). “There needs to be a consistency.” Miller also found room for a little play, however: One of his favorite effects involves a dung beetle that raises its back legs and rolls the dung away. “That rolling sound is just me rolling over the edges of a soup can,” he says with a laugh. “When we can be literal, we’re literal. But it’s fun to throw curveballs too.” In a way, Pok Pok Playroom is a curveball of its own, something that stands out by virtue of its simplicity. “We’re people, we’re not computers building this,” says Huybreghts. “It’s not vector art. It’s all hand-drawn and hand-animated. We’re not a giant, polished company. You can really see everyone’s impression, everyone’s mark, on every single thing they make in the app.” Learn more about Pok Pok Playroom Download Pok Pok Playroom from the App Store

  • Developer Spotlight: SmartGym

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 04 Aug 2021 11:06:18 PDT

    Matt Abras kept three words in mind when creating SmartGym: simplicity, simplicity, and simplicity. “Many workout apps have a throw-spaghetti-at-the-wall-and-see-what sticks plan,” says the Brazil-based developer. “I don’t like that approach.” With SmartGym’s illustrated library of more than 620 exercises, you can put together your own workout routine or have the app’s Smart Trainer create one for you. When you’re at the gym, the app calls out each exercise and start timers as needed. And with the Apple Watch app, all that happens right from your wrist. We spoke to the Brazil-based developer about what drew him to Apple Watch, his Smart Trainer, and why you need to dream big. SmartGym selects the best exercises for your needs — and shows you exactly how to do them right. How did you start developing apps? I went to college and studied computer science, but I never wanted to become a developer — I wanted to work at Pixar! I loved the idea of inspiring and bringing joy to people. But when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in 2007, I knew it would change the world — my life included. And when I first saw the Apple Watch, I knew it would be the future — just like the iPhone. Was SmartGym always designed to be Apple Watch–first? Absolutely, from day one. Every feature in our iPhone app, including the AI Smart Trainer that creates personalized routines for you, is completely implemented on the watch. With Apple Watch, there are no distractions — it’s focused only on your training. What inspired you to create SmartGym? People can be intimidated to go to the gym. Others might have no idea which exercises to do. I wanted to give users the confidence they need to start going. That’s why SmartGym begins with questions everyone knows how to answer: Which muscles do you want to target? What’s your experience level? It will create a workout for you, and then Smart Trainer will continually suggest changes as you progress. What’s your design philosophy? The app needs to be simple. It needs to be transparent. I have users who are 70. I’ve heard from army veterans and people deployed in Afghanistan. There’s a huge range of people in different scenarios in different cultures. What advice would you give to developers just starting out? I received advice a long time ago that really shaped me: Dream really big, because God is huge. Always do everything with excellence. Pay attention to the smallest details, because everything matters. Persevere. Do what you love with passion. And always create things that will change the world for the better. Download SmartGym from the App Store Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

  • Upcoming tax and price changes for apps and in-app purchases

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 03 Aug 2021 09:30:38 PDT

    When taxes or foreign exchange rates change, we sometimes need to update prices on the App Store in certain regions and/or adjust your proceeds. In the next few days, prices of apps and in-app purchases (excluding auto-renewable subscriptions) on the App Store will decrease in: South Africa United Kingdom All territories that use the Euro currency Prices will increase in Georgia and Tajikistan. The increases also consider the following tax changes, and Exhibit B of the Paid Applications Agreement has been updated to indicate that Apple collects and remits applicable taxes in these locations. Georgia: New value-added tax of 18% Tajikistan: New value-added tax of 18% that applies to developers based outside of Tajikistan Your proceeds will be adjusted accordingly and will be calculated based on the tax-exclusive price. In addition, your proceeds on the App Store in Italy will be increased to reflect a change to the Digital Services Tax effective rate. Once these changes go into effect, the Pricing and Availability section of My Apps will be updated. You can change the price of your apps and in-app purchases (including auto-renewable subscriptions) at any time in App Store Connect. If you offer subscriptions, you can choose to preserve prices for existing subscribers. View the updated price tier charts

  • Get ready for a new Game Center authentication certificate

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 30 Jul 2021 15:25:10 PDT

    Starting August 4, 2021, a new certificate for server-based Game Center verification will be available via the publicKeyUrl. The previous certificate will no longer be available after this date. As a reminder, make sure your app always retrieves and uses the current publicKeyUrl value so it automatically uses the new certificate. If your app caches the certificate or hardcodes the certificate URL, it will require an update. Please note, this root certificate issuer has been updated from Symantec Corporation to DigiCert, Inc. Make sure to check that the new root certificate issuer is on your list of trusted CAs. You can download the trusted root CA (DigiCert trusted G4) here. Learn more

  • Behind the Design: Carrot Weather

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 30 Jul 2021 08:00:00 PDT

    Generally speaking, weather apps don’t threaten your life. They don’t insult your life choices. They don’t tell you that the sun makes your skin look, and we’re quoting here, “like curdled oatmeal.” And they rarely, if ever, try to conquer the world. Carrot Weather does all three — pretty much on a daily basis. But that’s not the most interesting thing about the meteorological marvel created by mild-mannered Philadelphia native Brian Mueller. Prior to launch, Mueller had no background in development, less background in meteorology, and frankly seems way too nice to have won an Apple Design Award with an app that routinely calls those who use it “meatbags.” No, the most interesting thing is this: Underneath his humble (and objectively non-murderous) exterior, Mueller knew that meme-worthy jokes wouldn’t be enough — Carrot had to be a best-in-class weather app, too. “There are basically two apps here,” says Mueller, who codes, designs, illustrates, and writes the (often real-time) gags himself. “One is an entertainment app — something you want to open apart from learning about temperatures and conditions. The other is a professional weather app. I wanted both.” He got them. Carrot Weather presents its meteorological metrics — humidity, UV index, and sunrise and sunset — in splashy, colorful screens that match its acerbic voice. (“Does the sun really think he can hide? We see you behind those clouds, stupid star.”) The app is available on for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. And earlier in 2021, Mueller released an update that lets users customize Carrot however they please, creating, in essence, a “Choose Your Own Weather App“ experience (albeit one that occasionally threatens you with scary clowns). Carrot Weather’s creator, Brian Mueller It’s a long way to go for a guy who started developing on the side seven years ago while pursuing a full-time career as — not entirely surprisingly — a screenwriter. “I’m an English major with a creative writing minor,” Mueller says. “I love to write and create characters and tell stories, but I had no real idea of what I would do with my life.” He found the idea of apps intriguing, but had no experience to draw from. “I figured if I was going to build an app, I’d just hire someone to do it for me,” he says. “I got a book on iOS development, mostly so I could flip through the vocabulary and not sound like a complete idiot. But it wasn’t anywhere near as over my head as I thought, so I just started building.” In a matter of months, Mueller had his first title, a to-do list app called Grailr whose mascots were an Indiana Jones-type character and his cartoon dog sidekick. “The dog’s name was Sir Waffles, and he had a top hat and monocle,” Mueller laughs. “I liked him. But it was way too hard for me to animate a cartoon dog.” Instead, he popped into Photoshop, drew a simple pattern of three circles, and then began playing around with animation, eventually landing on a nefarious-looking pulsing red light drawn straight from the HAL and GLaDOS school of evil sentient robots. “There was no genius idea,” he says. “That was basically the extent of what I could do in Core Animation in iOS at the time.” This necessity became Carrot’s look. Her dark, devious personality, however, comes from those closest to Mueller: his mom, sister, and wife — all of whom tease one another relentlessly. (Sister Beth, for instance, commemorated Carrot’s Apple Design Award win by emailing him the following: “You’re probably getting lots of congratulatory messages, so I just wanted to remind you that you are the worst.”) “A lot of the dialogue for Carrot is drawn out of stuff that we’ve actually said to each other,” he says. “Every time my wife says something funny, I write it down. Sometimes she gets annoyed by that, but she’s a lot funnier than I am.” With his robot ready, Mueller began releasing a series of apps — Carrot To-Do, Carrot Fit — all with the same distinct approach to motivation. His to-do list yells when you fail to complete a task. His alarm clock mocks you for sleeping in. His fitness app shames you for slacking off. Weather was a logical next step. Carrot Weather began strictly as an entertainment app — one that leaned in entirely on Mueller’s digital doppelganger. “It was a cool, gimmicky kind of thing, and people liked it,” he says. But over time, people started asking for more metrics: cloud cover, wind speed, pressure. Data, data, and more data. “I’d spend an hour or so sketching and figuring out how to fit things in,” he says. “That’s how I started learning how to solve design challenges.” The inaugural version of Carrot Weather focused almost entirely on the current temperature; the second version began to dig in on forecast, radar, and notifications. But its next redesign was a big one: The 2017 model brought Carrot to Apple Watch, which Mueller says was the “turning point” in transitioning the app into something more than a repository of jokes. “I couldn’t really have long jokes on the Watch, so I had to focus on making a really good weather app,” he says. “I started over from scratch. I tried to use all of the hardware features built into the Watch as much as possible to abstract away a lot of what would normally be visual in the interface on the iPhone." Mueller focused the experience on a few key data points and used color to communicate weather conditions so that people could quickly get a sense of their forecast. From there, he worked in reverse, bringing his favorite features back into the iPhone and iPad app. Today, the Carrot universe comprises seven iOS apps and an iOS sticker pack, as well as Apple Watch, Apple TV, and Mac versions of Carrot Weather. The app now offers a fully customizable interface for those who want to craft their perfect weather app. You can record customizable weather reports replete with sassy teleprompter dialogue, or have Carrot taunt you in augmented reality. (She turns red if you annoy her. You’ll probably annoy her.) There have been upgrades on the sarcastic side too: Mueller regularly updates the app’s text to reflect current events, which means he can respond to current events — everything from political headlines to console releases — within minutes. “People are tweeting me all the time how they get their news from a weather app,” he laughs. And yes, if so moved, you can even mitigate the darker sides of Carrot’s personality. “I wanted an option for people who were more interested in the cool professional features — or maybe for the people who don’t want the ‘Oh, Carrot wants to kill you,’ kind of thing” he laughs. “Even if you turn off the personality completely, you’ll still get the fun animations and features.” For all his success, Mueller remains humble (even a little bemused) by all this attention. His design process, he jokes, isn’t as formal as many of his Apple Design Award-winning peers — it’s “basically throwing a bunch of stuff on a screen until I don’t think it’s hideous.” Even so, it’s that singular focus and care (and dash of self-deprecation) that makes Carrot stand out. Mueller’s constant iteration and exploration — whether he’s iterating on interface designs, supporting new API, or crafting a late-breaking joke — keep the app fresh and entertaining long after you’ve checked the day’s weather. Learn more about Carrot Weather Download CARROT Weather from the App Store Bringing CARROT Weather to Apple Watch

  • Apple Entrepreneur Camp applications open for Black founders and developers

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 28 Jul 2021 14:05:30 PDT

    Apple Entrepreneur Camp supports underrepresented founders and developers as they build the next generation of cutting-edge apps and helps form a global network that encourages the pipeline and longevity of these entrepreneurs in technology. Applications are open now for the next cohort for Black founders and developers, which runs online from October 26 to November 4, 2021. Attendees receive code-level guidance, mentorship, and inspiration with unprecedented access to Apple engineers and leaders. Applications close on August 17, 2021. Learn more about Entrepreneur Camp Learn about some of our inspiring alumni

  • Developer Spotlight: Ladder

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 28 Jul 2021 11:00:15 PDT

    Ladder is a self-care and mindfulness app built for the Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) community — or, as founder Don Le puts it, “people like us.” The app helps you establish positive, productive daily routines to reduce anxiety, improve your sleep, amp up your physical activity, and more. The Ladder difference: Its trainers, coaches, and experts are all from the BIPOC community. “It’s not often that most — or in our case, all — of the voices in an app are people of color,” says Le, who founded Ladder with Thuc Tran. Build better habits by keeping track of your streaks and filling in that pleasingly color-coded chart. We caught up with Le to discuss the benefits of bugs, the virtues of journaling, and diversity in the self-care space. Were you into mindfulness and self-care before launching Ladder? My background was in investing — I used to work at a growth equity firm. But the idea for Ladder came from my own journey. I was getting burned out, so I started looking for tools to get out of the rut I was in. I began meditating and journaling, then realized I could find ways to not just share what I’d learned but also make it more accessible. What were your first steps? I started going to mental health conferences and local support groups. There I saw how people often didn’t have access to — or couldn’t afford — traditional mental health care tools. Or they went through the process and felt it just didn’t work for them. Did you design Ladder for a BIPOC audience from the outset? We did. As I started digging more into the research, I came across some pretty crazy stats: Over 85 percent of psychologists working in the U.S. are white, and the remaining 10 percent are split between Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, and others. You look at the mindfulness and mental health apps out there and they are predominantly white too. When we reached out to wellness experts and content producers, they’d tell us they felt the lack of diversity — that the audience they were reaching wasn’t as diverse as they’d have liked. So the next step for us was expanding that library of trainers even more. Which of the features you’ve built were you most surprised to see resonate with customers? Early on, our users were tracking their habits and building healthier ones. But as the app progressed, we saw people really caring more about the daily check-in. Being able to log emotions and journal their thoughts became the most important feature for many people. We don’t know if that’s COVID-related or a natural progression, but it’s become our most winning feature. What advice do you have for developers just starting out? Direct-to-consumer apps are notoriously brutal; it can be really hard to find a market fit. So talk to users. Talk to them more than you think you need to. Get in a feedback loop as soon as you can. You’ll really come to understand how people are using your app. They might see things that you might not see as very important. Download Ladder from the App Store Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

  • Developer Spotlight: Noted

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 23 Jul 2021 08:00:58 PDT

    Four years ago, Noted cofounders Terenze Yuen and Fai Tung came out of an hours-long client meeting with two things: a very lengthy recording and a total lack of enthusiasm for transcribing it. “You can imagine the pain,” Yuen says. Happily, that pain inspired the pair to create Noted, a recording app that lets you add text annotations and hashtags to your recordings as you’re making them. After you tap the big red button, anything you type — “launch update,” “convoluted calculus formula,” “funniest quote of the interview” — is automatically time-stamped. With its mix of audio and text, Noted is one of the most powerful note-taking apps in the galaxy. We caught up with Yuen to talk about his app’s growth, Michelle Obama’s inspiring words at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), and the challenge of getting artificial intelligence to understand with silence. You’ve said you and your cofounder were inspired by a very long meeting… We were! When we came out, he said, “Do you remember the time they mentioned this and that?” I sent him the recording, but neither of us could remember the timeline. We thought, “Why can’t we marry note-taking and audio recording, so when someone asks for that time, you can tap back to a hashtag? That was the core of the idea. After you launched, where did you see Noted used most? Classes and meetings. We got a lot of images from users in lecture halls and conferences, including WWDC. Journalists use it all the time; songwriters use it to write lyrics and play them back. Add time stamps and hashtags to key moments in your recordings. What surprised you about how people were using Noted? One thing was hearing from users who are blind. Then, in 2017, we heard Michelle Obama talk at WWDC about imagining someone, somewhere, whom you could lift up with your work. I asked myself, “Are we really building for everyone? Are we doing all that we can?” I realized we had room to improve. We started integrating VoiceOver, then worked with blind people to improve that. A teacher at a school in New Zealand reached out to help her kids take notes during class. This is something that touches our hearts. Noted can automatically skip over long silences in your recordings. How did you create that feature? We got a lot of suggestions from people who were in lectures all day. Their recordings were three or four hours long because they forgot to stop recording when there was a break, and they’d have to scrub through those 30 minutes or whatever it was. So we put our thinking caps on and looked into machine learning. We struggled with that! But when Core ML released, one of our guys sat down and went through thousands of hours of audio to train it. We knew it was doable. What advice would you give to developers who are just starting out? You can’t do everything yourself. One person isn’t a symphony — you need everyone to play. When your app gets out the door, that’s the start of the whole thing, not the end. You need people in customer support. You need people in design. You need marketing people, you need engineers. You need different types of people to do distinct things. Download Noted from the App Store Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

  • Tax Category Setting Now Available in App Store Connect

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 20 Jul 2021 13:20:31 PDT

    The App Store makes it easy for you to manage transactions in 175 territories, and Apple administers tax on behalf of developers in 64 of those territories. Now App Store Connect provides the ability to assign tax categories to your apps and in-app purchases. These categories are based on your app's content (for example, videos, books, or news publications) and determine which tax regulations apply in each territory, allowing Apple to administer tax for you at specific rates. To assign categories, visit the Pricing and Availability section for your app in App Store Connect. If a category applies to your app, select it at the app level to apply it to the app and its associated in-app purchases. You can also manage each in-app purchase individually. Your selections will be applied to future transactions. If you choose not to make any changes, your apps and in-app purchases will be assigned the App Store software category at the same tax rate used today. Adjust these settings at any time as the characterization of your apps or in-app purchases evolve or as tax legislation changes. Learn more about setting tax categories Updated on June 17, 2022

  • Behind the Design: Loóna

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 20 Jul 2021 08:30:52 PDT

    Andrew Yanchurevich’s inspiration for Loóna came, appropriately enough, at night-night time. As a father of a 3-year-old son, Yanchurevich was well in the habit of reading bedtime stories nearly every night. One evening, he realized his son wasn’t the only one getting drowsy. “What worked well for him was also working for me,” says Yanchurevich. “As I read, I forgot about my thoughts and my plans. My mind came down.” While that night brought Yanchurevich pleasant drowsiness, it also sparked the beginnings of an idea: an app that paired the beauty of a great bedtime story with soothing interactive experiences to help you drift off to dreamland. Together with co-founder and former product designer Eugene Nevgen, they dreamt up a product as gorgeous as it is effective: Loóna. The app winds you down with “sleepscapes,” interactive episodes designed to soothe your mind at the end of your day. “People use their phones at bedtimes, so we wanted to give them a more meaningful way to do it,” Yanchurevich says. “You can spend 20 or 30 minutes with Loóna and be ready to fall asleep.” The idea, as Yanchurevich says, is to “recreate this safe bubble from your childhood,” just as he was doing for his son. In the introductory sleepscape “The Dragon’s Shrine,” you’ll explore a beautifully rendered marble pagoda while an appropriately mellifluous voice guides you through calming tasks. As you progress through sleepscapes, you’ll lose yourself in a fairytale kingdom, explore a dark forest, or simply cozy up to a crackling fire. Co-founder Nevgen says his goal with Loóna wasn’t just to build a great mindfulness app, but to create “the most beautiful in the category.” That’s turned out to be a big job: There are more than 55 sleepscapes in the app, each of which took some 500 hours to build. People use their phones at bedtimes, so we wanted to give them a more meaningful way to do it. Luckily, the minds behind Loóna had a unique blend of skill sets. Nevgen and Yanchurevich are former product designers; co-founder Sergey Gonchar is a veteran engineer (along with Nevgen, he launched the now-defunct face-filter app MSQRD); co-founder Dmitri Doryn has a background in 3D graphics and training as an architect; and sound designer Ivan Senkevich has a long history in audio. Sleepscape ideas range from esoteric notions like “the light of hope” or “the luminous realm” to something more concrete, like a Parisian park or a throwback Brooklyn. A bustling New York city may not be exactly the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a relaxing place. “Generally, people expect to see rainbows or forests in an app that promotes relaxation and sleep,” says Loóna CPO Mike Chernetsov, who leads the writing team. “Here you’ve got an old city building in the late evening.” But part of the team’s goal is expanding the idea of what a relaxing place can be. “We don’t want to just do stereotypical places,” Chernetsov says. “Sometimes, we want to show places from a totally different perspective. If you look (at ‘Heartwarming Brooklyn’), it refers to a feeling that resonates with everyone: nostalgia. When we’re not feeling good, we all want a place to escape to, a moment where we can feel safe and secure. And from a visual standpoint, Brooklyn is really very soothing.” Yanchurevich says the Brooklyn sleepscape is also easily one of the app’s most popular. “People have messaged us wanting the address to the building,” he says. “They want to grab a pizza in that cafe.” Every soundscape the team creates involves this level of exploration and storytelling. While co-founder Doryn gets to work drafting a 3D model of the potential world, Chernetsov and the writing team are focused on exploring the narrative: What would bring you to this place? What would you do there? What sort of meditative activities would keep you the right level of engaged? It’s not storytelling in the traditional sense, but the writers so have an advantage: they can plunge into Doryn’s early sketches themselves to, as he says, “fly around the scene to finish the story.” We want to show places from a totally different perspective. If you look (at ‘Heartwarming Brooklyn’), it refers to a feeling that resonates with everyone: nostalgia. When we’re not feeling good, we all want a place to escape to, a moment where we can feel safe and secure. While the story is coming together, the app’s team of musicians and sound designers also get to work laying the sleepy sonic groundwork, much of which is recorded live in the team’s hometown of Minsk, Belarus. “I often come into my village to record,” says Senkevich. “The region has a great natural sound.” To create the appropriately somnolent aural environment, Senkevich often hits the road in search of animal noises, breezy forests, babbling rivers, and the buzz of insect life. “Some of the sleepscapes are more cartoonish and some more realistic. But we always try to show that natural-ness of the sound.” (Some sounds, he notes, did come from libraries. “You can’t record the sea in Minsk,” Senkevich says with a laugh.) Still, at the end of the day (well, the night), Loóna’s goal is to get you to turn the app off. The key is to strike an artful balance between meditative activity and relaxation; if a sleepscape is working, you’ll shut it down well before you’re finished (which is OK, you can pick it tomorrow night). Doryn says that finding that tightrope-sized balance is not always easy. “It’s an iterative process,” Doryn says,“ and sometimes we do go too far. Our animation team always wants to do more. Something more beautiful, something more glowy and shiny and with lots of jiggling wiggling stuff in the scene,” he laughs. To find that balance, Loóna trusts their team of testers, who interact, color, unpack, and play with each soundscape to make sure the worlds help lull their participants without distracting them. A sleepscape called The Rusty Rooster Inn, for example, initially featured dozens of roof tiles that needed to be individually lit; their testers found it too much, however, so the Loóna team went back to grouping tiles together. Finding that balance, Doryn says, is a constant job. “There’s no simple recipe, no silver bullet.” he says. “It’s all responding to user feedback. We’re constantly running tiny surveys, and always improving things from a technical and performance standpoint.” With nearly 100 more sleepscapes in the works, Loóna is growing fast. From a creative standpoint, the team is working to craft an interconnected “Loóna universe,” where elements, themes, and even Easter eggs pop up across the app’s bank of sleepscapes. “We want to offer a journey to a whole universe of interconnected worlds,” says Chernetsov. "We want you to find a place where you’ll feel safe and secure, every night." Learn more about Loona Download Loona from the App Store

  • Developer Spotlight: CHANI

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 16 Jul 2021 08:00:34 PDT

    In the universe of astrology, Chani Nicholas is a shining star — she has a New York Times best-seller (You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance), a massive and devoted podcast audience, and a huge social media following. With Chani, Nicholas says, she wanted to provide an experience only an app could, by “creating a personalized guide through life’s ups and downs.” If you’re accustomed to reading astrology in short blurbs, Chani will be a revelation: Extensive horoscopes and birth charts deliver insights based on your birth date and time, and the current position of every planet (and Pluto). There’s more to Chani than (really comprehensive) horoscopes. Guided meditations, journal prompts, and more are core to the experience. Equally important to Nicholas are the app’s social justice initiatives: Chani was built by AnnieCannons, a queer-led development group whose engineers are predominantly survivors of human trafficking or gender-based violence. And 5 percent of the app’s revenue goes to survivors of gender-based violence through FreeFrom.org, an organization run by Nicholas’ wife, Sonya Passi, who also serves as CEO of Chani Nicholas Inc. We caught up with Nicholas and Passi to discuss the importance of creating a dialogue with your chart, and how all Geminis aren’t the same. Why did you decide to develop an app? Nicholas: I’ve taught workshops online for the past six years; they were really successful, but they were delivered in a fairly archaic way. Building an app seemed like the most organic thing to do next. Passi: It was important for us to make this system of knowledge extremely accessible. We talk about the app being the blueprint of your life in the palm of your hand. But we don’t want to just give your horoscope in tidbits; we want to give you the tools to be in a constant dialogue with your own chart. The app is full of very specific, personalized information. Who provides all the content? Nicholas: Every single word is written by me and a team of astrologers who have years, if not decades, of experience. And the planets never stop moving! Whatever you write is gone by the end of the week. The app includes workshops designed to bring you into a closer relationship with your chart. What has the response been like? Nicholas: What I note from people is how it’s become a ritual: listening to the podcast, doing the workshops, checking in. It’s evolving in a way where people are making it part of their self-care; there’s such community participation. On Sundays and Mondays, people post a lot of weekend pictures of themselves in the bath to social media. I hope their devices are OK! What were the early days like after you launched the app? Passi: I must have answered about 1,200 customer service emails! We’ll look back on that time with turned stomachs and tremendous fondness, because that’s the beauty of it, right? The struggle and the success, seeing it all come together and remembering what you did to get it there. Now — and I’m certain a lot of app developers feel the same way — the ideas are coming faster than we can build. What can astrology mean to the world today? Nicholas: It really can feel empowering to know things about yourself, but it’s also about having a relationship with the story. People whose sign is, say, Gemini — the world tells them what they are, based on that. But obviously, everybody with the Gemini sign is very, very different. I wanted to subvert things and have you be more on the inside of your chart. Passi: I didn’t know a lot about astrology before Chani and I met. Once I did learn, it felt like my life began. My healing journey began. My acceptance of who I am and what I’m here to do began. It’s important to me that everyone can have that. Learn more about CHANI on the App Store Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

  • Developer Spotlight: Cone

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 01 Jul 2021 13:46:55 PDT

    As a student in India, Kushagra Agarwal’s favorite subject had always been art, until he started having difficulty identifying the color brown. By sixth grade, dark green, red, and brown became almost indistinguishable to him. As he grew older, Agarwal was disappointed by the lack of tools for people with color-blindness, so he got to work: Coding with Swift, he built the app Cone, which uses the iPhone or iPad’s camera—and Apple’s AVFoundation framework—to identify colors in photos or any environment. Agarwal designed Cone to serve as a guide for those with color-blindness. The App Store spoke to Agarwal about color temperatures, the design world, and picking ripe mangoes. What inspired you to create Cone?
There were other options for color-blind people, but they never worked reliably for me. Some would read only limited hues. Some would read only the color of the exact pixel you were pointing to, which would result in inaccuracies. Individual pixels never tell the whole story—the colors you see, especially in high-resolution photos, are an average of all the colors in a small area. When did you realize you were onto something?
I’d heard it’s possible to tell if a mango is ripe by its color. I could never do that because I have a hard time differentiating between yellow-orange and green. So one day I had the app look at a few mangoes in the kitchen and found some of them were green! To my eyes, they were different shades of the same color, but Cone told me the real story. I still use Cone to identify ripe mangoes! What was the early response to your app?
Initially, people—mostly from Reddit’s r/colorblind community—were skeptical about Cone’s accuracy, mainly because of two problems in existing apps: inaccurate color readings in different lighting conditions and the tendency for apps to read only a single pixel value. I introduced a color-temperature control so Cone could read colors accurately in different lighting conditions. I also had Cone read every color around a point and show the average result. People enjoyed this attention to detail. How has Cone evolved since launch?
Before Cone was released to the public, it was a simple color-identification tool for personal use. Once I started polishing it for release, I figured out another use case that would help me as a designer: the ability to store and manage colors in a library. So over time, Cone evolved to be a utility for designers. It’s now used by UI designers, interior designers, graphic designers, print designers, and more. The app has become an invaluable tool for many people. What has it meant for you?
Now I make fewer mistakes seeing colors, so I am able to always wear matching clothes! Learn more about Cone on the App Store Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

  • Fine-tune your App Transport Security settings

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 16 Jun 2021 05:00:29 PDT

    At Apple, we believe privacy is a fundamental human right. When people connect to a public Wi-Fi hotspot, they expect to use your app to send and receive data without worrying that someone in the vicinity could intercept their connection and gain access to unencrypted data. Allowing even seemingly-innocuous data to remain unencrypted can expose people to snooping and fingerprinting by anyone on the network. Transport Layer Security (TLS) uses encryption to protect connections from prying eyes, and URLSession provides strong TLS connections by default with App Transport Security (ATS). If you need to connect to older servers that don't support TLS, however, you can now add ATS exceptions to your app. Ideally, exceptions should just carve out the specific domains or frameworks that make insecure connections, and you should limit any exceptions you do request. Avoid sending data unencrypted except when absolutely necessary for your app to function. Identify necessary ATS exceptions To make sure your app — and the data used within it — is as secure as possible, it’s important to identify whether your app is currently making insecure connections. To check, disable all your active ATS exceptions by setting their values in your Info.plist to “NO.” From there, open your app or run your unit tests. If your app makes an insecure connection, Xcode will generate runtime errors for each one. If your app is generating insecure connections, there are a few steps you can take to remove them. Secure your servers If your app connects to servers you control, make sure those servers support secure connections. This requires a TLS certificate. If you use a hosting service, check whether they offer certificates, and make sure those certificates meet the requirements detailed in “Preventing Insecure Network Connections.” Preventing Insecure Network Connections Use HTTPS If your app connects to servers you don’t control, you should always attempt to connect to those servers over HTTPS instead of HTTP. You can identify whether a server supports HTTPS by simply changing “http://” to “https://” in your URL string and trying to load data from that website. You can check this manually in a browser, or run code as follows: let request = URLRequest(url: URL(string: “https://www.example.com”)!) Many websites redirect HTTP connections to HTTPS. Connecting over HTTPS first can often improve the performance of your app. Note, however, that while a website may use HTTPS, that doesn’t mean it’s ATS-compatible. For instance, it may be using an outdated version of TLS, which, on Safari, displays a “This Connection Is Not Private” warning. Remove unnecessary exceptions On websites where you no longer receive ATS runtime errors, you can remove those exceptions. Locate “App Transport Security Settings” in your Info.plist and click the “-” icon to remove the exceptions in question. Configure exception domains If your app still needs to make insecure connections to specific domains, you can configure ATS exceptions for just those domains. Add Exception Domains directly to your app’s Info.plist or in the project editor. Navigate to “Signing & Capabilities” and choose the “+ Capability” option. Select “App Transport Security Exception” from the list. This will add an “App Transport Security Exception” section to your capabilities: Click the “+” icon to add domains that your app needs to connect to insecurely. Enter a domain here to connect over HTTP to that domain and its subdomains. If you need to alter these settings, you can make changes directly in your Info.plist. Configure framework and class exceptions On rare occasion, you still may need to make an insecure connection to an unknown domain. In this case, there are two broader exceptions you can consider offering. If your app needs to make insecure connections through WKWebView, add “Allows Arbitrary Loads In Web Content” to your Info.plist: If your app needs to make insecure connections through AVFoundation, add “Allows Arbitrary Loads for Media”: These exceptions will ensure that your app only makes insecure connections via AVFoundation or WKWebView, leaving the rest of your app protected by ATS. Because these are relatively broad exceptions, however, they will allow every part of your app that uses AVFoundation or WKWebView to make insecure connections which can be intercepted and inspected. Keep your app secure People want to trust your app, and ATS can help you build that trust by handling their data responsibly while in transit. To get the most out of ATS: Make sure that your app connects to servers over HTTPS instead of HTTP. Tailor your ATS exceptions to your app as closely as possible. Periodically review your exceptions to check whether servers have started supporting HTTPS or your app no longer needs to connect those servers to make insecure connections. Resources WWDC15 Networking with NSURLSession Learn about App Transport Security, HTTP/2 protocol support, new NSURLSession API, and best practices for networking in apps, extensions, and WatchKit apps. NSAppTransportSecurity Preventing Insecure Network Connections NSExceptionDomains NSAllowsArbitraryLoadsForMedia NSAllowsArbitraryLoadsInWebContent WKWebView Learn more about App Transport Security on the Developer Forums

  • Best of WWDC21

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 14 Jun 2021 05:00:22 PDT

    While WWDC has come to a close, you can still explore the pavilions and check out some of the best sessions and challenges from the week. And to get you started, here are some of our favorites. WWDC21 Daily Recaps WWDC21 Monday@WWDC21 Trying to make sense of all the exciting announcements, new technologies, and Fall previews at WWDC this year? Let's break it down for you. Check out a recap of everything that happened on Day 1 of WWDC — and get a sneak peek at all the great stuff coming tomorrow. WWDC21 Tuesday@WWDC21 The day's almost over, but there's still so much to explore: Catch up on the best of Day 2 at WWDC and check out a few of the great sessions and activities still to come. WWDC21 Wednesday@WWDC21 Well hello, Wednesday! Time to catch up on Day 3 at WWDC and find out what's coming to a Thursday near you. WWDC21 Thursday@WWDC21 Where did the WWDC week go? We'll tell you: Check out everything you missed on Thursday and tune in for a quick preview of our final day at Dub Dub. WWDC21 Friday@WWDC21 It's time to say adieu to the week, and what a week it was! Tune in as we recap Friday and close out WWDC21. Best of Accessibility & Inclusion WWDC21 The practice of inclusive design An inclusive app or game is not only usable by different people, but also welcomes people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. Discover how you can design inclusive content for your interface, language, imagery, and marketing materials and support the broadest possible range of people with... WWDC21 SwiftUI Accessibility: Beyond the basics Go beyond the basics to deliver an exceptional accessibility experience. Learn how to use the new SwiftUI Previews in Xcode to explore the latest accessibility APIs and create fantastic, accessible apps for everyone. Find out how you can customize the automatic accessibility built into SwiftUI to... WWDC21 Create accessible experiences for watchOS Discover how you can build a top-notch accessibility experience for watchOS when you support features like larger text sizes, VoiceOver, and AssistiveTouch. We’ll take you through adding visual and motor accessibility support to a SwiftUI app built for watchOS, including best practices around API... Best of App Services WWDC21 Meet CloudKit Console Discover how CloudKit Console can help you better interact with your containers. We’ll show you how to put the database app to work and define, modify, and deploy schema changes with confidence. You’ll learn how to craft queries in the query builder and filter your records with ease. And... WWDC21 Meet Shortcuts for macOS Shortcuts is coming to macOS, and your apps are a key part of that process. Discover how you can elevate the capabilities of your app by exposing those features as Shortcuts actions. We’ll show you how to build actions for your macOS apps built with Catalyst or AppKit, deploy actions across... Best of Audio & Video WWDC21 Meet Group Activities Learn more about the framework powering SharePlay, and discover the different types of shared experiences you can implement for people who use your app. Explore a high-level overview of the framework’s architecture and concepts, including how Group Activities and AVFoundation work in tandem, and... WWDC21 Create custom audio experiences with ShazamKit Bring custom audio matching to your app with ShazamKit. Discover how you can use Shazam's exact audio matching to recognize audio against any source when you use custom catalogs on device. Download our starter project and code along with the presenter as we guide you through the process of... WWDC21 Deliver a great playback experience on tvOS Find out how you can use Apple TV’s redesigned playback interface to build great media experiences in your apps. Learn how the latest interface helps people access relevant controls and information while maintaining focus on content. We’ll show you how you can adopt AVPlayerViewController and... Best of Augmented Reality WWDC21 Explore ARKit 5 Build the next generation of augmented reality apps with ARKit 5. Explore how you can use Location Anchors in additional regions and more easily onboard people into your location-based AR experience. Learn more about Face Tracking and Motion Capture. And discover best practices for placing your AR... WWDC21 Dive into RealityKit 2 Creating engaging AR experiences has never been easier with RealityKit 2. Explore the latest enhancements to the RealityKit framework and take a deep dive into this underwater sample project. We’ll take you through the improved Entity Component System, streamlined animation pipeline, and the... WWDC21 AR Quick Look, meet Object Capture Discover simple ways to bring your Object Capture assets to AR Quick Look while optimizing for visual quality and file size. Explore ways you can integrate AR Quick Look and Object Capture to help create entirely new experiences. To get the most out of this session, we recommend first watching... Best of Business & Distribution WWDC21 Meet StoreKit 2 StoreKit 2 delivers powerful, Swift-native APIs for in-app purchases and auto-renewable subscriptions. Learn how you can easily implement in-app purchases and subscriptions, and discover APIs for retrieving product information, handling transactions, determining product entitlements and customer... WWDC21 Meet privacy-preserving ad attribution Discover how you can measure your ad campaigns in apps and on the web without compromising privacy. We'll introduce you to Private Click Measurement and explore SKAdNetwork, which provides you with a more secure, private, and useful way to measure your app installs. WWDC21 Meet TestFlight on Mac TestFlight has come to Mac. Learn how you can manage builds and testers, collect feedback, and deploy your macOS app. Discover enhancements for internal testing and new features that integrate with Xcode Cloud to make testing even easier on all platforms. Best of Design Explore SF Symbols 3 WWDC21 Discoverable design Discover how you can create interactive, memorable experiences to onboard people into your app. We’ll take you through discoverable design practices and learn how you can craft explorable, fun interfaces that help people grasp the possibilities of your app at a glance. We’ll also show you how... WWDC21 Design for spatial interaction Discover the principles for creating intuitive physical interactions between two or more devices, as demonstrated by Apple designers who worked on features for iPhone, HomePod mini, and AirTag. Explore how you can apply these patterns to your own app when designing features for Apple platforms, and... Best of Developer Tools WWDC21 Meet Xcode Cloud Get to know Xcode Cloud, Apple's continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) service for building apps and frameworks for all Apple platforms. Find out how Xcode Cloud can improve both the productivity of your team and the quality of your products. We’ll show you how to start your... WWDC21 Meet DocC documentation in Xcode Discover how you can use DocC to build and share documentation for Swift packages and frameworks. We’ll show you how to begin generating documentation from your own code — or from third-party code you depend upon — and write and format it using Markdown. And we’ll also take you through the... WWDC21 Explore Xcode Cloud workflows Learn how Xcode Cloud workflows can help you and your team automate building, analyzing, testing, archiving, and distributing your apps and frameworks. They are flexible, extensible, and can be configured around your team’s development and distribution process. Find out the basics of Xcode Cloud... Best of Education & Enterprise WWDC21 Meet ClassKit for file-based apps The ClassKit framework can help surface educational activities within your app to teachers using the Schoolwork app. Discover how you can provide teachers with greater insights into student learning by adopting the latest file-based API to report student progress data within your app. We’ll also... WWDC21 Meet the Screen Time API Explore the Screen Time API and learn how you can build apps that support customized parental controls — all while putting privacy first. Learn how you can use key features like core restrictions and device activity monitoring to create safe, secure experiences in your app while providing... WWDC21 Extract document data using Vision Discover how Vision can provide expert image recognition and analysis in your app to extract information from documents, recognize text in multiple languages, and identify barcodes. We’ll explore the latest updates to Text Recognition and Barcode Detection, show you how to bring all these tools... Best of Essentials WWDC21 What's new in App Clips Discover how App Clips can elevate quick and focused experiences for specific tasks, the moment your customer needs them. We’ll take you through some of the latest improvements to App Clips, including launching an experience directly from an app, testing your App Clip locally, and creating App... WWDC21 Principles of great widgets Explore the foundations of great widgets by keeping them relevant and customizable. Learn how to keep widgets up to date with timeline entries and TimelineReloadPolicies. Discover how to adapt your widget to different presentation environments and physical location. And lastly, find out how to... WWDC21 What’s new in SF Symbols Explore the latest updates to SF Symbols, Apple’s iconography library. Designed to integrate seamlessly with San Francisco — the system font for Apple platforms — SF Symbols can help you create beautiful and consistent iconography for your app while supporting accessibility features like... Best of Graphics & Games WWDC21 What’s new in Game Center: Widgets, friends, and multiplayer improvements Power up your online gaming experience with GameKit and adopt features like multiplayer, leaderboards, and achievements in your game. We’ll take you through the latest improvements to Game Center, including player matching and multiplayer APIs, and explore how you can boost discovery of your game. WWDC21 Practice audio haptic design Discover how you can deliver rich app experiences that include animation, sound, and haptics on iPhone. Learn key concepts for designing multimodal experiences within the Core Haptics framework. We’ll take you through our sample HapticRicochet app — where haptic and sound feedback is designed... WWDC21 Discover geometry-aware audio with the Physical Audio Spatialization Engine (PHASE) Explore how geometry-aware audio can help you build complex, interactive, and immersive audio scenes for your apps and games. Meet PHASE, Apple’s spatial audio API, and learn how the Physical Audio Spatialization Engine (PHASE) keeps the sound aligned with your experience at all times — helping... Best of Health & Fitness What's new in health and fitness WWDC21 Explore Verifiable Health Records Find out how you can securely request access to someone’s verifiable health records and incorporate that data safely into your app. The Health app helps people download, view, and share their health records, including their COVID-19 immunization and test results — and iOS 15 brings support for... Code-Along: Build a Research and Care app Best of ML & Vision WWDC21 Classify hand poses and actions with Create ML With Create ML, your app’s ability to understand the expressiveness of the human hand has never been easier. Discover how you can build off the support for Hand Pose Detection in Vision and train custom Hand Pose and Hand Action classifiers using the Create ML app and framework. Learn how simple... WWDC21 Detect people, faces, and poses using Vision Discover the latest updates to the Vision framework to help your apps detect people, faces, and poses. Meet the Person Segmentation API, which helps your app separate people in images from their surroundings, and explore the latest contiguous metrics for tracking pitch, yaw, and the roll of the... WWDC21 Discover built-in sound classification in SoundAnalysis Explore how you can use the Sound Analysis framework in your app to detect and classify discrete sounds from any audio source — including live sounds from a microphone or from a video or audio file — and identify precisely in a moment where that sound occurs. Learn how the built-in sound... Best of Photos & Camera WWDC21 What’s new in camera capture Learn how you can interact with Video Effects in Control Center including Center Stage, Portrait mode, and Mic modes. We’ll show you how to detect when these features have been enabled for your app and explore ways to adopt custom interfaces to make them controllable from within your app.... WWDC21 Improve access to Photos in your app PHPicker is the simplest and most secure way to integrate the Photos library into your app — and it’s getting even better. Learn how to handle ordered selection of images in your app, as well as pre-selecting assets any time the picker is shown. And for apps that need to integrate more deeply... WWDC21 Use the camera for keyboard input in your app Learn how you can support Live Text and intelligently pull information from the camera to fill out forms and text fields in your app. We’ll show you how to apply content filtering to capture the correct information when someone uses the camera as keyboard input and apply it to a relevant... Best of Privacy & Security WWDC21 Apple’s privacy pillars in focus At Apple, we believe that privacy is a fundamental human right. Learn about our four pillars of privacy, how we brought these principles together to design iCloud Private Relay, and how you can approach building privacy in your app in line with those fundamentals. Explore how you can build data... WWDC21 Move beyond passwords Despite their prevalence, passwords inherently come with challenges that make them poorly suited to securing someone’s online accounts. Learn more about the challenges passwords pose to modern security and how to move beyond them. Explore the next frontier in account security with... WWDC21 Get ready for iCloud Private Relay iCloud Private Relay is an iCloud+ service that prevents networks and servers from monitoring a person's activity across the internet. Discover how your app can participate in this transition to a more secure and private internet: We'll show you how to prepare your apps, servers, and networks to... Best of Safari & Web WWDC21 Meet Safari Web Extensions on iOS Safari Web Extensions use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to offer people powerful browser customizations — and you can now create them for every device that supports Safari. Learn how to build a Safari Web Extension that works for all devices, and discover how you can convert an existing extension to... WWDC21 Secure login with iCloud Keychain verification codes Learn how you can support on-device verification codes in your app or website for a more secure sign-in experience. We’ll explore the latest updates to the iCloud Keychain password manager and discover how verification codes, AutoFill, iCloud Keychain sync, and two-tap setup simplify the... Best of Swift WWDC21 Meet async/await in Swift Swift now supports asynchronous functions — a pattern commonly known as async/await. Discover how the new syntax can make your code easier to read and understand. Learn what happens when a function suspends, and find out how to adapt existing completion handlers to asynchronous functions. WWDC21 What‘s new in Swift Join us for an update on Swift. Discover the latest language advancements that make your code easier to read and write. Explore the growing number of APIs available as Swift packages. And we’ll introduce you to Swift’s async/await syntax, structured concurrency, and actors. Best of SwiftUI & Frameworks WWDC21 Demystify SwiftUI Peek behind the curtain into the core tenets of SwiftUI philosophy: Identity, Lifetime, and Dependencies. Find out about common patterns, learn the principles that drive the framework, and discover how you can use them to guarantee correctness and performance for your app. WWDC21 What's new in SwiftUI There’s never been a better time to develop your apps with SwiftUI. Discover the latest updates to the UI framework — including lists, buttons, and text fields — and learn how these features can help you more fully adopt SwiftUI in your app. Find out how to create beautiful, visually-rich... WWDC21 Discover concurrency in SwiftUI Discover how you can use Swift’s concurrency features to build even better SwiftUI apps. We’ll show you how concurrent workflows interact with your ObservableObjects, and explore how you can use them directly in your SwiftUI views and models. Find out how to use await to make your app run... Best of System Services WWDC21 Explore Nearby Interaction with third-party accessories Discover how your app can interact with Ultra Wideband (UWB) third-party accessories when running on a U1-equipped device. We’ll show you how to use the Nearby Interaction framework’s standards-based technology to implement precise and directionally-aware experiences with accessories. Learn... WWDC21 Connect Bluetooth devices to Apple Watch Discover how you can integrate data from Bluetooth accessories into Apple Watch apps and complications. Bluetooth devices can provide medical data, sports stats, and more to Apple Watch, and help people get more out of your software in the process. We’ll show you how to connect to these devices... WWDC21 Add support for Matter in your smart home app The enhanced and new APIs in HomeKit enable smart home developers to integrate with the new Matter protocol in the most convenient way. Tour the Matter protocol, and discover how to set up and manage Matter accessories on our platforms and within your smart home apps.

  • WWDC21 resources and survey

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 11 Jun 2021 04:00:12 PDT

    Thank you to everyone who joined us for an amazing week. We hope you found value, connection, and fun. You can continue to: Watch sessions at any time. Review key newly announced technologies. View sample code from sessions. Post on the Apple Developer Forums. We’d love to know what you thought of this year’s conference. If you’d like to tell us about your experience, please complete the WWDC21 survey. Take the survey

  • Challenge: Create an engaging tutorial

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 10 Jun 2021 22:00:30 PDT

    The DocC documentation compiler, available in Xcode 13, converts Markdown-based text into rich documentation for Swift frameworks and packages and displays it right in the Xcode documentation window. DocC also powers the interactive developer tutorials featured on developer.apple.com. In this challenge, we invite you to explore the tutorial functionality and design and build step-by-step instructions for an existing project you’ve created or an open source Swift package. Begin the challenge To get started writing a tutorial, add a Documentation Catalog to your existing project, or create a new framework project. You’ll write your tutorial content in Markdown, and use directives to define specific types of pages and elements, like introductions, sections, steps, and assessments. Then, use the Build Documentation feature of Xcode — which runs the DocC compiler — to render your tutorial in a rich, interactive learning format. Resources WWDC21 Meet DocC documentation in Xcode Discover how you can use DocC to build and share documentation for Swift packages and frameworks. We’ll show you how to begin generating documentation from your own code — or from third-party code you depend upon — and write and format it using Markdown. And we’ll also take you through the... Create great documentation with DocC WWDC21 Build interactive tutorials using DocC Discover how you can author immersive tutorials from scratch with DocC. We’ll demonstrate how you can bring together rich instructions, example code, and images through the DocC syntax to showcase your Swift framework in action. And we’ll go over how to create progressive training that can... WWDC21 Elevate your DocC documentation in Xcode Great documentation can help people effectively and easily adopt your Swift framework. Discover how you can create rich, conceptual articles to accompany your API. You’ll learn best practices for writing articles, including how to structure your documentation, and find out how to create... Visit the Apple Developer Forums Building an Interactive Tutorial SlothCreator: Building DocC Documentation in Xcode Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • WWDC21 Daily Digest: Day 5

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 10 Jun 2021 21:00:58 PDT

    This is it! The final day of WWDC. (We can’t believe it, either.) Before we power down, however, we’ve got one more big day of events and activities for you. Relive the week It’s been a busy week — and we understand if you missed some of the action. Catch up quickly with our video recaps of Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4. WWDC21 Thursday@WWDC21 WWDC21 Wednesday@WWDC21 WWDC21 Tuesday@WWDC21 WWDC21 Monday@WWDC21 Day 5 in the WWDC pavilions There’s still lots to explore in the pavilions. Discover how to design for Safari 15 in the Safari & Web pavilion. Learn how to practice audio haptic design in the Audio & Video pavilion. And find out how to build a research and care app in the Health & Fitness pavilion. WWDC21 Design for Safari 15 WWDC21 Practice audio haptic design Code-Along: Build a Research and Care app Code-Along: Build a great Mac app in SwiftUI WWDC21 Write a DSL in Swift using result builders WWDC21 Explore advanced project configuration in Xcode WWDC21 Create 3D workflows with USD Accept these Friday challenges The responses to the #WWDC21Challenges this week have been fantastic. You’ve captured 3D objects and designed SwiftUI interfaces for your apps in the style of old Apple design language. You’ve resolved pesky memory issues in code by capturing flags, and designed and created ShazamKit companion apps. Developer Laurence Moroney built an app for the “Build an app using built-in Sound Classification” challenge that takes the built-in sound classes and renders them as emoji. We’re wowed by the things you’ve created — and now, it’s the last day to show off your skills. Explore #WWDC21Challenges on social media Explore spatial audio soundscapes and learn how to craft compelling stories with multichannel audio. Build a prototype in SwiftUI. And solve a pitch-black maze entirely using VoiceOver. Challenge: Prototype with SwiftUI Challenge: Explore spatial audio soundscapes Challenge: VoiceOver Maze Drop in on the Digital Lounges The WWDC21 Digital Lounges have been so much fun, but it’s almost time to say goodbye. The lounges will close at 5 p.m. PDT on Friday, but there’s still time to stop by SwiftUI Office Hours, meet the presenters in the Machine Learning lounge, and connect with the developer tools and accessibility teams. Don’t be shy — if you haven’t stopped by the Digital Lounges yet, we’d love to meet you still. Explore the Accessibility Digital Lounge Explore the Developer Tools Digital Lounge Explore the Machine Learning Digital Lounge Explore the SwiftUI Digital Lounge Spotlight on accessibility How do you approach creating apps for everyone? Learn from developers who are blind or deaf themselves as they discuss the process of making technology accessible. Discover how their unique perspectives have sparked innovation at their companies and helped make their apps even more inclusive. WWDC21 Developer spotlight: Accessibility Join our final Mindful Cooldown for Coding There’s been so much excitement this week: At 3 p.m. PDT, wind down with one final Mindful Cooldown for Coding from our friends at Fitness+. And that’s a wrap! Thank you for spending your week with us, watching sessions, participating in our Digital Lounges, asking questions in the Developer Forums and 1-to-1 labs, trying daily challenges, and having fun. And remember: While WWDC21 may be over, our session and labs content will be available all year round in the Developer app for you to consult when you’re ready to start working on the next thing.

  • Challenge: VoiceOver Maze

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 10 Jun 2021 18:00:24 PDT

    Can you escape from Castle Park using only VoiceOver? Challenge yourself to solve this puzzle while getting familiar with VoiceOver, an assistive technology for people who are blind and low-vision. VoiceOver is a screen reader that allows people who are blind and low-vision to completely operate Apple’s products. On iOS, people can touch and swipe on the screen in order to navigate items, with each item’s name and status spoken aloud using synthesized speech. In this challenge, we invite you to escape the maze of Castle Park. But there’s a catch: There is no visual interface in this iOS app! You must rely completely on VoiceOver to navigate the maze and escape. How to enable VoiceOver You have a few options to enable or disable VoiceOver. You can ask Siri to turn VoiceOver on or off for you at anytime. You can use the Accessibility Shortcut in Settings > Accessibility and set the shortcut to VoiceOver. Now, when you triple click the side button (or Home button, depending on your device), you can quickly turn VoiceOver on or off. Begin the challenge To start this accessibility challenge, download the Xcode project linked below and run it on iPhone or iPad. Use VoiceOver to explore the app and make decisions to help you escape. Tip: Once you’ve enabled VoiceOver, there are three main gestures to help you navigate: Touch to speak Swipe left or right to move previous or next Double-tap to activate And once you complete this challenge, consider exploring how your own app behaves with VoiceOver. How can you make it better for people who rely on a screen reader to interact with their device? WWDC21 SwiftUI Accessibility: Beyond the basics Go beyond the basics to deliver an exceptional accessibility experience. Learn how to use the new SwiftUI Previews in Xcode to explore the latest accessibility APIs and create fantastic, accessible apps for everyone. Find out how you can customize the automatic accessibility built into SwiftUI to... WWDC21 Tailor the VoiceOver experience in your data-rich apps Learn how to present complex data through VoiceOver with the Accessibility Custom Content API. Discover how you can deliver accessibility information in a concise form, and only when someone wants it. We’ll show you how you can integrate AXCustomContent and help people who want VoiceOver enabled... WWDC18 VoiceOver: App Testing Beyond The Visuals VoiceOver provides spoken descriptions and braille output of onscreen elements. Learn how to go beyond the visuals to identify VoiceOver and functional issues to help improve the experience for all users. Resources WWDC21 Challenge: VoiceOver Maze Enhance the VoiceOver experience in your app Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Prototype with SwiftUI

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 10 Jun 2021 18:00:18 PDT

    While SwiftUI is a powerful framework, one of its key features is its simplicity. Designers with very little knowledge of code can easily create prototypes with human-readable syntax and interactive Xcode Previews. In this challenge, we invite you to say “hello, world” with a brilliant SwiftUI-based prototype. Begin the challenge What’s an app you’d love to build right now? Take charge of SwiftUI and Xcode Previews and turn that idea into a prototype: Explore what interfaces you can create with Xcode Preview, and let the tools write the code for you. (And pick up a little SwiftUI code knowledge along the way.) Start fresh with a new Xcode project, or explore prototyping a new view in SwiftUI for your existing app. Need support, or want help from the community in prototyping? You can share prototyping projects in progress on the Developer Forums. Already working on a prototype in UIKit or AppKit? Explore creating a new view in SwiftUI. Visit the Apple Developer Forums Share your new SwiftUI views with us over the summer. We can’t wait to see what you can build with SwiftUI and Xcode Previews, and to hear about what you learn! Resources Code-Along: Build a great Mac app in SwiftUI WWDC20 Introduction to SwiftUI Explore the world of declarative-style programming: Discover how to build a fully-functioning SwiftUI app from scratch as we explain the benefits of writing declarative code and how SwiftUI and Xcode can combine forces to help you build great apps, faster. Introducing SwiftUI Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Explore spatial audio soundscapes

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 10 Jun 2021 18:00:09 PDT

    When you support multichannel audio in your app, game, or audiovisual content, you can add dimensionality to your storytelling, transport listeners out of a conventional audio experience, and bring people further into the worlds you’re creating. In this challenge, we invite you to explore a soundscape in intentional stereo, stereo spatialization, and multichannel formats, consider the differences between each, and brainstorm how spatial audio could enhance your own stories. Begin the challenge In the demo for “Immerse your app in spatial audio,” the presenter, Simon, has his spatial audio demonstration video ‘fail’ on him. After a few moments of panic and quick thinking, he decides he’s going to describe the events of this failed video — and as he does, those events begin to come to life. In each scene, different audio techniques create a fully-imagined environment for the audience to inhabit, drawing them into Simon’s described world. WWDC21 Immerse your app in spatial audio Discover how spatial audio can help you provide a theater-like experience for media in your apps and on the web. We’ll show you how you can easily bring immersive audio to those listening with compatible hardware, and how to automatically deliver different listening experiences depending on... For this challenge, we’re inviting you to explore this demo and listen to the differences as you move between intentional stereo, spatialized stereo, and multichannel formats. You’ll need a pair of spatial audio-compatible accessories, like AirPods Pro, as well as a device running iOS 14 or macOS Big Sur. To explore the spatialized stereo format, you’ll need a device running iOS 15 or macOS Monterey. As you listen, consider how each version of the experience feels different. Listen to the demo in intentional stereo Watch the session on iOS 14 or macOS Big Sur in the Developer app or on developer.apple.com. You’ll hear this demo delivered in stereo, with visual cues on screen indicating the full surround experience. What do you notice, listening to this experience? How does the audio shift and change as we move through each of Simon’s soundscapes? Listen to the demo for "Immerse your app in spatial audio" in the Developer app Listen to the demo in spatialized stereo To hear the spatialized stereo version of “Immerse your app in spatial audio,” watch this demo on a device running the iOS 15 or macOS Monterey developer betas. How does this change the experience for the listener compared to the intentional stereo version? Are there sounds or moments you find yourself noticing that you haven’t before? Listen to the demo for "Immerse your app in spatial audio" in the Developer app Listen to the demo in multichannel You can stream a full multichannel mix of this demo in spatial audio on either iOS 14 or iOS 15 using the link below. As you listen to this multichannel mix, divide the world into three distances: Background, foreground, and personal space. Think about where the sounds are coming from. What do these different distances and orientations add to the experience? How does the positioning of sound further enhance this story? Listen to the demo for "Immerse your app in spatial audio" in multichannel audio Now, think about a moment from your app, game or audiovisual content. How does the audio currently sound in this moment? How can you improve that experience by bringing distance and orientation into your soundscape? Where could supporting multichannel and spatial audio help draw people into your story? Spatialize your experiences With more support for spatial audio experiences coming with iOS 15 and macOS Monterey later this year, now is a great time to consider how you currently approach telling stories through audio. Listen to your stereo experiences on the developer betas and listen to how they change when played back in spatialize stereo. Consider how you can augment those existing moments by creating multichannel mixes. And explore what kinds of entirely new experiences you can provide listeners with spatial audio. For game designers, we also recommend watching “Discover geometry-aware audio with the Physical Audio Spatialization Engine (PHASE)” to learn about new ways you can create spatial audio experiences that adapt to the environment of your game. Note: if you’re curious about experimenting further with multichannel, you can try creating a multichannel audio experience of your own by exploring the binaural and surround mixing tools in digital audio workstations (DAWs) like Logic Pro X. (To properly mix and play back your audio in surround, however, you’ll need a multichannel speaker setup.) Want to share your thoughts on this demo, or how you’d adapt your existing experiences for spatial audio? Head over to the Developer Forums. Visit the Apple Developer Forums Resources WWDC21 Immerse your app in spatial audio Discover how spatial audio can help you provide a theater-like experience for media in your apps and on the web. We’ll show you how you can easily bring immersive audio to those listening with compatible hardware, and how to automatically deliver different listening experiences depending on... WWDC21 Discover geometry-aware audio with the Physical Audio Spatialization Engine (PHASE) Explore how geometry-aware audio can help you build complex, interactive, and immersive audio scenes for your apps and games. Meet PHASE, Apple’s spatial audio API, and learn how the Physical Audio Spatialization Engine (PHASE) keeps the sound aligned with your experience at all times — helping... Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Apple Design Award winners announced

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 10 Jun 2021 14:30:51 PDT

    The Apple Design Awards honor excellence in innovation, ingenuity, and technical achievement in app and game design. Learn about these winning apps and the talented developers behind them. View the award winners

  • Challenge: Achievement Unlocked — Series Finale

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 10 Jun 2021 06:30:51 PDT

    When you create achievements that truly surprise and delight your players as they make their way through a game, you can help elicit a feeling of accomplishment, or even make the player laugh. Most of us have experienced playing games where we have unlocked some kind of achievement or trophy that stirs some of these emotions. This is exactly what we want you to consider when you create Game Center achievements for your apps or games — and now, we’re challenging you to show the developer community your best, funniest, strangest, and most delightful achievements. Begin the challenge This achievements challenge focuses on sequencing achievements to encourage people to complete a specific set of tasks. Progress-based achievements are the most common types of rewards players can earn, and coupling some of them together can help create an even stronger narrative within your app or game. Whether your game is divided into chapters, levels, or some other way, today’s challenge is to create a series of at least 2-3 achievements that break up the narrative in a unique and interesting way. Think about how you might add titles and descriptions in both the locked and unlocked versions of the achievement that indicate to the player these are connected together and need to be unlocked in that specific order. (And as always, bonus points for puns and amazing alliteration.) We welcome all achievements, new, old, existing, or imaginary: Show off your “Series Finale” achievements from one of your existing apps or games, or put your wordsmithery to work and create an entirely new set of achievements. You can share these with the developer community on the Developer Forums. Best of all, we’ve made it easy for you to participate and dream up awesome achievements even if you haven’t yet implemented Game Center or you want to try writing something entirely new: Just download the attached Game Center achievement template. Visit the Apple Developer Forums Best practices for great achievements It’s a lot of fun to create unique and engaging achievements to connect people with your app or game. Below are a few of our recommendations when thinking about writing and designing achievements. Be creative with an achievement’s title, but straightforward with its description Although most people appreciate entertaining titles, they expect an achievement’s description to specify how to earn it. If you were to create a WWDC21 achievement, for instance, you might write the following: Title: Code Completionist Description: Watched every WWDC21 Code-Along session. Be succinct The Game Center achievement card limits your title and description to two lines each before truncating the text — brevity is key to a great achievement. Think inclusively Follow the Human Interface Guidelines around inclusivity when creating achievements. The best jokes, puns, and wordplay are those that are intuitive and friendly to everyone who might interact with your app or game, and make players feel recognized and rewarded. Add unique, high-quality images People appreciate earning unique achievements that remind them of each accomplishment. When you create custom artwork, you can help that achievement stand out from the others in your app or game and make it more recognizable to people who interact with it. You can learn more about how to design great achievements in Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines, and in the WWDC20 session “Design for Game Center.” WWDC20 Design for Game Center Get your game's interface ready for Game Center. We’ll show you how to deliver personalized touches to the GameKit interface that provide a rich experience for players, with features like achievements, leaderboards, and multiplayer gaming. Learn how to customize your game’s access point, design... Download the Achievement Unlocked Challenge material Learn more about designing achievements Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Focus on Focus APIs in SwiftUI

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 10 Jun 2021 06:30:24 PDT

    With device input — as with all things in life — where you put your focus matters. Focus can help people move through your app, whether they’re using the keyboard, Siri Remote, Apple Watch Digital Crown, or accessibility features — and you can make that experience even better with SwiftUI’s Focus APIs. Begin the challenge Our challenge to you: Find a part of your app where you can use the SwiftUI Focus APIs to fine-tune that interaction. That could include testing a great new tvOS implementation, polishing keyboard-driven navigation, or crafting a great accessibility experience. Need support, or want help from the community as you explore the Focus APIs? You can share your progress in the Developer Forums. Visit the Apple Developer Forums Resources WWDC21 Direct and reflect focus in SwiftUI With device input — as with all things in life — where you put focus matters. Discover how you can move focus in your app with SwiftUI, programmatically dismiss the keyboard, and build large navigation targets from small views. Together, these APIs can help you simplify your app’s interface... WWDC21 SwiftUI Accessibility: Beyond the basics Go beyond the basics to deliver an exceptional accessibility experience. Learn how to use the new SwiftUI Previews in Xcode to explore the latest accessibility APIs and create fantastic, accessible apps for everyone. Find out how you can customize the automatic accessibility built into SwiftUI to... Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Memgraph Capture the Flag

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 10 Jun 2021 06:30:06 PDT

    In the "Detect and diagnose memory issues" session at WWDC21, we explored how debugging memory problems can help improve your app’s performance, while “Symbolication: Beyond the basics” showcased debug symbols and how symbolication helps us connect the dots during code debugging. Now, it’s time to put those new skills to work. If you like solving puzzles, you’re in the right place. One of our engineers has hidden a memory easter egg in our secret app. We're trying to track it down but all we know is that it has format flag_<unknown_string_here>@WWDC. You’ll have to use the command line tools offered by macOS to investigate the memory issue, recover missing symbols, and and capture the rogue flag. Begin the challenge To get started, download the challenge .zip attached to this article and unzip the folder. We also have a message from our engineer to get you on the right track: "Memgraph is a special binary plist. What can you find in its properties?” Download the Memgraph Capture the Flag Challenge material And once you’ve explored the challenge, check out one solution to find the flag. Articles Challenge: Solution to “Memgraph Capture The Flag” The “Memgraph Capture the Flag” challenge invites you to learn and practice memory debugging and symbolication with command line tools. If you haven’t yet attempted the challenge or otherwise don’t want to be spoiled on the necessary steps to complete it, we recommend returning to the... You can solve these kinds of puzzles and track down memory issues in your own app, too. Try creating reference cycles in your app, saving a memgraph, and tracing them back to your source code. And for more debugging details, check out the WWDC21 sessions below. Resources WWDC21 Symbolication: Beyond the basics Discover how you can achieve maximum performance and insightful debugging with your app. Symbolication is at the center of tools such as Instruments and LLDB to help bridge the layers between your application’s runtime and your source code. Learn how this process works and the steps you can take... WWDC21 Detect and diagnose memory issues Discover how you can understand and diagnose memory performance problems with Xcode. We’ll take you through the latest updates to Xcode’s tools, explore Metrics, check out the memgraph collection feature in XCTest, and learn how to catch regressions using a Performance XCTest. Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Create amazing documentation

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 10 Jun 2021 06:00:57 PDT

    Explore Xcode's new documentation features and learn how to add documentation to your own framework or package — or to your favorite open source project. For this challenge, we’re asking you to create documentation for your own framework or package (or your favorite open source project). Use Xcode 13 to build documentation from the header comments in your Swift framework, and add a Documentation Catalog to organize your content. Begin the challenge Open up your project in Xcode, and start adding documentation comments in your source by using Swift DocC markdown syntax. DocC uses the comments you write in your source code as the content for the documentation pages it generates. At a minimum, add basic documentation comments to the framework’s public symbols for DocC to use as their single-sentence abstracts or summaries. Here’s an example: /// A model representing a sloth. /// /// Sloths are mammals noted for their slowness of movement. They spend most of their /// lives hanging upside down in trees. public struct Sloth { /// The species of the sloth. public var species: Species Once you’ve finished your documentation, select Product > Build Documentation to generate your source docs for Quick Help and the Developer Documentation window. Need help writing or constructing your documentation? You can share your progress on the Developer Forums. Visit the Apple Developer Forums Resources Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Voice Control Synonyms

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 10 Jun 2021 06:00:43 PDT

    Challenge yourself to make your app accessible through Voice Control and provide support for voice-based interaction. Voice Control is a feature built into iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, and empowers those who can’t use traditional input devices to control their Mac, iPhone, and iPad entirely with their voices. For people with motor limitations, having full voice control of their devices is truly transformative. People can gesture with their voices to click, swipe, and tap anywhere — they can do everything someone could do with a mouse or with touch. On iOS and iPadOS, Voice Control has the additional option to show Item Names, which place a name next to each tappable item. In this challenge, we’ll be making the “Show Names” experience better. Suppose that you create a button that looks like a paper airplane. What do you say to tap? “Tap send”? “Tap reply”? “Tap airplane”? In UIKit you can use the accessibilityUserInputLabels string array to respond to these prompts, while in SwiftUI you’d use the .accessibilityInputLabels modifier. How to enable Voice Control To use Voice Control, go to Settings > Accessibility > Voice Control. If it’s your first time enabling this setting, you'll be asked to Set Up Voice Control and download a short file. Once Voice Control has been set up, you can enable it in a few different ways: You can ask Siri to turn Voice Control on or off for you at anytime. You can use the Accessibility Shortcut in Settings > Accessibility and set the shortcut to Voice Control. Now, when you triple click the side button (or Home button, depending on your device), you can quickly turn Voice Control on or off. Use Voice Control to interact with iPhone Begin the challenge We’re challenging you to make your app’s UI as easy to navigate by voice as possible and improve the Voice Control experience in your app. Start by turning on Voice Control by visiting Settings > Accessibility > Voice Control, and enable Overlay > Show Names. Next, take a screenshot of your interface with the “Show names” overlay displaying on top of it. Explore what it’s like to navigate your app by Voice Control alone. What experience are you giving people right now? Are you struggling with any common tasks? How could you make it better? Once you’ve spent some time with your app in Voice Control mode, it’s time to make some improvements. Here are a few tweaks you can make to your code to make your experience better for everyone. Explore accessibilityInputLabels First, you can implement accessibilityInputLabels to create short, concise labels that someone could easily speak by voice. Button(action: { sendMessage = true }) { Image(systemName: "paperplane") .font(.title) .accessibilityInputLabels(["send", "reply", "airplane"]) } Tips: Your primary string is the first string in the array, and will be the one that Voice Control shows on screen. Brevity is key: use short, succinct words. Localize your strings using NSLocalizedString and avoid special symbols in your labels. When it comes to number of synonyms, add them judiciously. Limit the number of possible strings to a max of 4, as to not overload the recognition system. You may have multiple elements in your UI that could be described the same way: One example is an image browser, where each image might be described as “Screenshot”. You can rely on Voice Control’s disambiguation feature in these cases to keep your label names short. When someone says “Screenshot”, a list of numbers will appear over all elements named “Screenshot” for someone to choose from. Shorten label names If your app already incorporates accessibilityLabel, you’ve done a lot of the work already — but your labels may be too long to speak! You can take advantage of accessibilityUserInputLabels (or, in SwiftUI, .accessibilityInputLabels) to keep the speakable label short, while leaving the valuable information your current accessibilityLabel conveys to an audience that relies on it. Share your experiences As you add support for Voice Control to your app, share your implementation with the developer community. After you’ve made changes or improvements to your app, take another screenshot of your UI with the “Show names” overlay enabled. Share “before” and “after” screenshots on the Developer Forums. (And don’t forget to add alt text to your screenshot images on platforms that support it!) Resources Visit the Apple Developer Forums Voice Control accessibilityUserInputLabels accessibilityInputLabels(_:) Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Create fun visual effects in Swift Playgrounds

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 10 Jun 2021 06:00:14 PDT

    Ever wonder how to make it seem like confetti is raining down from the sky? Or how to create a kaleidoscope effect using code? In this challenge, your goal is to create a compelling visual effect using the Shapes book from the Swift Playgrounds app. Maybe it’s a constellation of objects revolving in intriguing mathematical patterns, or a textural and fluid shape that adapts to your touch. It’s all up to you: What kind of visual effect would you like to dream up? Begin the challenge To get started, download and open Swift Playgrounds on your iPad or Mac, then select See All from the lower right corner to launch the Swift Playgrounds content screen. From here, you can find the Shapes book under “Starting Points” and download a copy to your device. The Shapes starting point has some great examples to reference as you get started. Check out the page “Shape Graphics” to explore the book’s basic API for creating all shape types and placing them in the scene. “Touches and Animations” will show you how to apply animations to shapes and use touch events to drive behaviors. And finally “Sprite Shapes” can help you learn how to set up physics interactions between different shapes. From there, you’ll have all you need to create your own visual composition. Want to show off your visual concept to the community? You can share your creation (or creation-in-progress) on the Developer Forums. Visit the Apple Developer Forums Resources Download Swift Playgrounds for macOS Learn more about Swift Playgrounds Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Optimize your app for 5G

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 10 Jun 2021 05:00:50 PDT

    Wi-Fi and LTE have long helped apps deliver connected experiences like video streaming, social networking, and online gaming — and 5G networking can provide even more opportunities to take advantage of high-bandwidth and low-latency connections in your app. Discover how you can optimize your existing app or build a new product from the ground up with 5G in mind so that you can move more data faster and deliver a great experience to people around the world. Up your 5G game One of the best ways you can take advantage of 5G’s high-performance characteristics is to offer multiple versions of an asset depending on someone’s network connection. If a person using your app is on a lower-bandwidth connection, your app can download or deliver files appropriate for that network; likewise, you can deliver higher-bandwidth assets when the connection supports it so that you can provide more information quickly. You can apply this to multiple different types of apps, including: Streaming apps Video streaming apps can incorporate intelligent buffering and playback with AVFoundation to serve 4K (or 4K HDR) content to devices on 5G networks as well as lower-bandwidth options when connected to LTE. Learn more about AVFoundation Games Use the bandwidth available on 5G networks to deliver higher quality visuals and game play with larger texture maps and higher-poly models than you might otherwise on lower-bandwidth networks. Additionally, 5G’s lower-latency connection provides for faster overall play and state-saving actions between players and your server backend. Learn more about SceneKit Machine Learning apps If your app uses Core ML, you can improve both the speed and reliability of your on-device intelligence when connected to a 5G network by automatically retrieving larger .mlmodel and .mlarchive files from your server to run locally on someone’s device. Core ML AR apps While on 5G, you can provide a greater number of high-resolution objects within your ARKit scenes to provide a richer augmented experience for people interacting with your app. You can also use the extra bandwidth available over 5G networks to share even larger ARWorldMap and ARPointCloud objects in a shared AR experience — for instance, working collaboratively to lay out physical spaces with virtual objects from your app. ARKit Tune your transfers Apple networking APIs automatically provide optimized management and performance for each platform and network type. In addition, you can further optimize your app to address potential cellular issues like movement speed and direction, cellular infrastructure demand, and interference. Forget the network Because 5G networks typically offer better performance than Wi-Fi, it’s up to you to decide how your app best utilizes network resources — and you no longer need to rely on overall network type (cellular or Wi-Fi) to do so. Instead, you can use Constrained and Expensive to describe various network states. Each of these states relies on information from a person’s Data Mode choices (as defined in Settings > Cellular > Cellular Data Options) as well as their cellular plan restrictions. isExpensive isConstrained For example, the network automatically switches to Constrained when someone enables Low Data Mode. When a person’s network is listed as Constrained, your app should minimize network data usage regardless of the value of Expensive. If the network is Expensive but not Constrained, your app should be considerate when fetching network resources while not imposing strict restraints. If the network is neither Constrained nor Expensive, your app can focus on providing the highest quality experience with minimal consideration for data usage. Each networking framework uses the Constrained and Expensive indicators in specific ways. When using URLRequest, for example, your app can indicate which resource should be retrieved by setting the appropriate value on the allowsConstrainedNetworkAccess and allowsExpensiveNetworkAccess properties. In contrast, when using NWConnection, your app can access the state of the network through stateUpdateHandler as the isConstrained isExpensive properties of your connection’s currentPath. And, if your app uses AVFoundation instead of the Network framework or URLRequest, there are similar keys including AVURLAssetAllowsConstrainedNetworkAccessKey and AVURLAssetAllowsExpensiveNetworkAccessKey. Regardless of technique, remember that the values for Constrained and Expensive are transient and can change as someone moves from one type of network connection to another. If your app dynamically monitors these changes, you’ll always provide the best experience for people, no matter their connection. allowsExpensiveNetworkAccess prohibitExpensivePaths Provide a fallback Unless your app is designed specifically for a network with guaranteed performance characteristics, like a corporate or private connection, you should always make sure it functions well — even when there’s no network available at all. When someone initially downloads your app, make sure it delivers acceptable-quality assets as part of the bundle. If the app has periods of fast connectivity, you can then download higher-quality files and store them locally to ensure they're available when someone leaves network range or goes offline entirely. Support your surroundings Most cellular providers have prioritized 5G rollouts in high-density areas: entertainment venues such as sports stadiums and amphitheaters, transportation hubs like train stations and airports, centers for business and education, and points of interest like public parks and tourist landmarks. When people recognize they’re in a high-performance networking location, they may want to explicitly enable caching and other features in your app before heading to a destination with reduced coverage — consider incorporating interface elements that notify and enable people to immediately download any relevant content Take advantage of built-in frameworks Apple’s hardware and on-device frameworks are tuned to deliver advanced functionality in a power-efficient manner. For example, you can use Core ML for on-device intelligence instead of client-server round trips, or ARKit and the Vision framework for capturing, processing, and presenting insightful information in the field. On-device processing minimizes the need to exchange large amounts of data — let alone potentially personally identifiable information — and eliminates the need for having to connect to a back-end process in order to provide a useful service in your app. When you do need to move large amounts of data, you can lean on Smart Data Mode for 5G-enabled devices. This feature monitors your app’s state along with any Apple frameworks you’re currently using to automatically switch between existing cellular frequencies in a manner that ensures your app receives the highest possible bandwidth — all without sacrificing battery life. For example, when an app is in the foreground and playing video using the AVFoundation framework, Smart Data Mode ensures that high-bandwidth 5G is enabled. In addition, Smart Data Mode monitors the streaming experience while someone is connected to a 5G network. If the stream is throttled due to traffic shaping — either by the cellular provider or the limitations of your CDN — the feature will identify the throttled throughput and move the stream to an LTE connection to conserve power. Background requests for data using the core networking frameworks can be served just as well over LTE or lower power frequencies. Get out there Previously, testing your app’s networking code involved toggling the network state, switching between Wi-Fi and cellular data, and then using a network conditioner and other tools to alter various characteristics. While this is still a great way to test for basic use cases, nothing beats getting out and exploring the edge-case scenarios only a deployed network can throw your way. Start small The App Store has a variety of apps you can use to determine the network characteristics for a given area. With one of these apps and a regional carrier’s wireless coverage map, you can track down the perfect spots in your area to ensure your app is selecting the correct resources at the right time. And once you’ve found that perfect 5G networking spot, move to another where your coverage is sub-optimal and check your app. Did it keep running? Did your streaming content degrade as expected or move to local resources? Did it deliver acceptable-quality assets after fresh install? The more real-world use cases you can test in advance, the better the experience overall will be for people around the world. Go big While many third-party websites provide performance data for cellular networks, they are an aggregate statistic and only an approximation of the performance at the location where someone might be using your app. Because this data is only valuable as a baseline, it’s not a substitute for knowing how your app performs in the wild. You can use Testflight for iOS to scale your beta testing to people and networks around the world. You may also want to consider creating a TestFlight group — not only to ensure your app is bug-free, but that it performs well based on the overall network characteristics of the cohort you’ve assembled. Move to the edge While the location of your server isn’t something you can always control, at least try to influence or decide where your server infrastructure resides and take steps to minimize the distance between your server and your app. When you reduce the distance between people and your backend, it can vastly improve the network performance of your app. One way you can improve your own app’s connection is by selecting a hosting provider that can federate your server back-end to map closely to the cellular networks your app uses. Alternatively, you may also want to consider using a few strategically-located CDNs. Reach out 5G networks provide a real opportunity to enhance your existing app with richer data or build entirely new experiences that were previously not possible. If youʼre working on creating an amazing experience with 5G and would like to share it with us, let us know. Contact us Learn more about supporting 5G in your apps

  • WWDC21 Daily Digest: Day 4

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 09 Jun 2021 18:00:12 PDT

    Welcome to day 4 of WWDC, or — as we’re calling it — Apple Design Awards day! We’ve got a fresh round of session videos, labs, challenges and some hardware to hand out later on, as well as lots of other fun activities in our pavilions and digital lounges. Read on. And the Apple Design Award winners are… ... being announced this afternoon! Stream the live presentation of the Apple Design Awards starting at 2 p.m. PDT. (Virtual rounds of applause will be accepted.) WWDC21 WWDC21 Apple Design Awards WWDC21 WWDC21 Apple Design Awards (ASL) Get all caught up Missed any of the fun this week? No worries: Our official recap videos will get you caught up in no time. WWDC21 Wednesday@WWDC21 WWDC21 Tuesday@WWDC21 WWDC21 Monday@WWDC21 Day 4 in the WWDC pavilions Another set of great sessions, labs, and activities have arrived in the pavilions: Try out a Framework Freestyle in the Essentials pavilion and learn a new framework in 100 lines of code or less. Discover how to design memorable SharePlay experiences in the Audio and Video pavilion. Sign up for one of Friday’s design labs in the Design pavilion. And get a glimpse of a magnificent future without passwords in the Privacy & Security pavilion. WWDC21 Design for spatial interaction WWDC21 Design for Group Activities WWDC21 Discover rolling clips with ReplayKit WWDC21 Create image processing apps powered by Apple Silicon WWDC21 Optimize high-end games for Apple GPUs Challenge: Framework Freestyle WWDC21 Build Mail app extensions WWDC21 Swift concurrency: Behind the scenes Learn to meditate (even if you’re fidgety) At 11 a.m. PDT, hear from special guest speaker Dan Harris, an Emmy-winning journalist, Good Morning America anchor and author of the best-selling book Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. After having a nationally televised panic attack in 2004, Harris found himself on a long and often bizarre journey that ended with the discovery of mindfulness meditation. Today, Harris will discuss his journey, as well as the books, podcast, and app that have helped millions manage the stress and anxieties of today’s world—including previous non-believers like himself. (Want a sneak peek? Check out Harris’s app Ten Percent Happier.) WWDC21 Meditation for fidgety skeptics Lock down a lab appointment There’s still one more day to register for a lab appointment with Apple engineers, designers, and specialists for 1-to-1 guidance and conversation. Until Day 5… That’s it for today! But rest up — we’ve got one more big day for you tomorrow.

  • Challenge: Framework Freestyle

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 09 Jun 2021 17:31:25 PDT

    No matter your level of expertise, it can be daunting to step out of your comfort zone when you’re first learning about new frameworks or technologies. Our challenge today presents a fun and interactive way to encourage you to try something new with an ARKit sample app and one framework of your choosing. What can you create in 100 lines of code or less? Begin the challenge This challenge is a gamified Augmented Reality experience created with RealityKit and ReplayKit. To participate, you’ll need to have downloaded the developer beta for iOS 15 and Xcode 13. After you do, download the Framework Freestyle sample project from this challenge and open it in Xcode, then build and run the app on your iOS device. When you engage with the app, it triggers a mystery sequence of Apple frameworks, randomly selecting one of them. Here comes the fun part: We’re asking you to build something new using whatever framework the randomizer lands on — and do so using 100 lines of code or less! For example, if it lands on SwiftUI, you could experiment in Xcode with the canvas, or try making a basic search bar with .searchable. Don’t worry too much about building something perfect: Use this challenge to break the ice, learn, and have fun. Resources WWDC21 Challenge: Framework Freestyle Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Sense the world around you in Swift Playgrounds

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 09 Jun 2021 06:00:52 PDT

    Just like our senses, our devices constantly gather data from their environment, and can use that information to do interesting and important things. In this challenge, you'll harness your iPad’s sensor data to create a visualization or experience of your choosing. Begin the challenge To get started, download and open Swift Playgrounds on your iPad, then select See All from the lower right corner to launch the Swift Playgrounds content screen. From here, you can find the Sensor Create book under “Starting Points” and download a copy to your device. In this challenge, you’ll use the Sensor Create playground book to gather some data from the world around you. You can use audio data (frequency, volume) from the microphone, light data (color, brightness) from the camera, and also gyroscope data (movement in X, Y, Z coordinates) from the motion sensor of the device. The book has some great reference material to help you get started: Check out “Using Device Motion,” “Using Light to Play Sound,” “Clappy Fish,” and “Synesthesia.” Think about the types of things you could decipher about your environment based upon this sensor data. Given this, how can you write some code that visualizes this information in interesting ways? For example, you could create an alarm that goes off when the volume around you is too high, or create a notification that displays when you quickly accelerate or decelerate, asking if you or your device has fallen. These are just examples: Use your imagination and come up with an idea you love! Resources Download Swift Playgrounds for iOS Learn more about Swift Playgrounds Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Design a quiz in Swift Playgrounds

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 08 Jun 2021 06:00:39 PDT

    Do the people in your life know your favorite animal noise? How about the book that changed your life? Your least favorite pizza topping? Design a “How well do you know me?” quiz to see who knows the most about your quirks and interests. Begin the challenge This challenge invites you to create a quiz using the Answers book in Swift Playgrounds. Your “How do you know me” quiz should ask a series of questions and ultimately return a score (and possibly a colorful description!) based upon how many questions were answered correctly. To get started, download and open Swift Playgrounds on your iPad or Mac, then select See All from the lower right corner to launch the Swift Playgrounds content screen. From here, you can find the Answers book under “Starting Points” and download a copy to your device. Use the Swift Playgrounds app to download the Answers book for this challenge. The Answers starting point contains a page called “API Overview,” which dives into the API for this playground. You can use the show call to display text or images, and use several different ask calls to request feedback from the player and store their response as variables. You can use the combination of these API calls to build up your own custom quiz questions and check responses against your own answer key. You can use Answers to build all sorts of different text-based trees and quizzes, and if you feel strongly about making a different type of quiz, please do! We highly encourage you to explore different ways of using this starting point to make something that you’re excited about. And if you’d like to share what you’ve built with the community, post a video of your quiz in action or share a link in the Developer Forums. Visit the Apple Developer Forums Resources Download Swift Playgrounds for macOS Learn more about Swift Playgrounds Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Achievement Unlocked – Fabulous Fails

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 08 Jun 2021 06:00:14 PDT

    When you create achievements that truly surprise and delight your players as they make their way through a game, you can help elicit a feeling of accomplishment, or even make the player laugh. Most of us have experienced playing games where we have unlocked some kind of achievement or trophy that stirs some of these emotions. This is exactly what we want you to consider when you create Game Center achievements for your apps or games — and now, we’re challenging you to show the developer community your best, funniest, strangest, and most delightful achievements. Begin the challenge For this challenge, we’re inviting you to share or create an achievement that rewards people for not coming out out top. Perhaps they’ve failed in a spectacularly short period of time or ended up going out in a hilariously fun way. Maybe they were a bit too curious about tapping that button. Sometimes failing can be just as fun as winning — and however they’ve failed, it’s time to show off how you reward them for it. We welcome all achievements, new, old, existing, or imaginary: Show off an existing “failure” achievement from your app or game, or put your wordsmithery to work and create an entirely new one. You can share your best “failure” achievement with the developer community on the Developer Forums. Best of all, we’ve made it easy for you to participate and dream up awesome achievements even if you haven’t yet implemented Game Center or you want to try something entirely new: Just download the attached Game Center achievement template. Visit the Apple Developer Forums Best practices for great achievements It’s a lot of fun to create unique and engaging achievements to connect people with your app or game. Below are a few of our recommendations when thinking about writing and designing achievements. Be creative with an achievement’s title, but straightforward with its description Although most people appreciate entertaining titles, they expect an achievement’s description to specify how to earn it. If you were to create a WWDC21 achievement, for instance, you might write the following: Title: Code Completionist Description: Watched every WWDC21 Code-Along session. Be succinct The Game Center achievement card limits your title and description to two lines each before truncating the text — brevity is key to a great achievement. Think inclusively Follow the Human Interface Guidelines around inclusivity when creating achievements. The best jokes, puns, and wordplay are those that are intuitive and friendly to everyone who might interact with your app or game, and make players feel recognized and rewarded. Add unique, high-quality images People appreciate earning unique achievements that remind them of each accomplishment. When you create custom artwork, you can help that achievement stand out from the others in your app or game and make it more recognizable to people who interact with it. You can learn more about how to design great achievements in Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines, and in the WWDC20 session “Design for Game Center.” WWDC20 Design for Game Center Get your game's interface ready for Game Center. We’ll show you how to deliver personalized touches to the GameKit interface that provide a rich experience for players, with features like achievements, leaderboards, and multiplayer gaming. Learn how to customize your game’s access point, design... Download the Achievement Unlocked Challenge material Learn more about designing achievements Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Throwback with SwiftUI

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 08 Jun 2021 05:55:30 PDT

    Whether you’ve been coding for 40 years, you’re new to the SwiftUI scene, or you’re a designer — everyone loves a good throwback. Give in to the nostalgia and imagine what your app might look like if designed for the Mac or iPhone interfaces of yesteryear. Are you a fan of the refreshing feel of 2000s-era Aqua? Perhaps you prefer the iconic grayscale of System 6. Or maybe you’ve been hoping for a return to the early days of iPhoneOS skeumorphism. Now’s your chance: Travel back in time with us and design a SwiftUI view that embraces that retro styling. Begin the challenge Before you travel through time, it’s important to choose your digital companion: are you designing a view for an existing app, or bringing an entirely new view idea along for the ride? Once you’ve decided, it’s time to fire up Xcode. Use your favorite random number generator to choose a year between 1984 and 2013 — or if you like, open up a Swift Playground to take you back in time: let myCoolRetroYear = Int.random(in: 1984..<2013) print("Reimagine your app's interface like it's from the year \(myCoolRetroYear)!") Once you’ve settled on a year, begin imagining your interface with the Apple Design Languages prominent during that time! For designers and those newer to the world of code, explore how much UI you can create with the help of Xcode Previews. And when it’s time to start adding code, see how simple and fun SwiftUI makes it. For seasoned code warriors, further your SwiftUI knowledge and explore the new features of SwiftUI that will take your recreated artifact to the next level. Want to share your work-in-progress or collaborate with other developers? You can show off your finished design in the Developer Forums. Visit the Apple Developer Forums Resources WWDC20 Introduction to SwiftUI Explore the world of declarative-style programming: Discover how to build a fully-functioning SwiftUI app from scratch as we explain the benefits of writing declarative code and how SwiftUI and Xcode can combine forces to help you build great apps, faster. Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Speech Synthesizer Simulator

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 08 Jun 2021 05:32:30 PDT

    AVSpeechSynthesizer is the engine that helps generate synthetic speech on iOS. Screen readers like VoiceOver rely on speech synthesis to help communicate information about items on the screen. It’s a foundational aspect for assistive technology, and a valuable tool for creating accessible apps and augmenting existing experiences for people and those who uses assistive technology. We’re inviting you to take AVSpeechSynthesizer for a spin out into the world. Using our ARKit-powered sample app, design a conversation between two animated birds, powered entirely by speech synthesis. You pick the scene, and the script. Begin the challenge To join this challenge, download the sample project and add the app to your iPhone. Choose where you want to film your conversation, as well as the tone and style. And don’t forget a set of dynamic and entertaining dialogue. WWDC21 Challenge: Speech Synthesizer Simulator Your scene could be an exchange between friends, a romantic comedy, or even an award-winning drama. While AVSpeechSynthesizer can read any string, keep your scenes respectful and inclusive. There’s no limit to what you can make, and we’re looking forward to learning what brilliant and funny scenes you create. And, for a bit of extra fun, try exploring some of the synthesizer properties to achieve different tones and inflections! Once you’ve staged and directed your scene, do a screen recording and share your creation with the developer community. You can also share your progress on the Developer Forums. Visit the Apple Developer Forums Resources WWDC18 AVSpeechSynthesizer: Making iOS Talk Speech can enhance the audio experience of your app, whether you are generating spoken feedback for accessibility, or providing critical information beyond simple alerts or notifications. AVSpeechSynthesizer produces synthesized speech from text and allows you to control and monitor the progress of... WWDC20 Create a seamless speech experience in your apps Augment your app’s accessibility experience with speech synthesis: Discover the best times and places to add speech APIs so that everyone who uses your app can benefit. Learn how to use AVSpeechSynthesizer to complement assistive technologies like VoiceOver, and when to implement alternative... Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Large Text

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 08 Jun 2021 05:00:54 PDT

    Dynamic Type allows people to choose the size of textual content displayed on the screen. You can use this feature to help people who prefer larger text to enhance their readability experience. Additionally, you can do something similar for those who prefer smaller text, allowing more information to be presented on screen. When designing apps to support Dynamic Type, it’s important to keep the adaptability of your interface in mind: This allows people to have a great experience with your app, no matter their preferred text size. Begin the challenge We've prepared a sample app for you in which some UI Elements are defying our layout and wreaking havoc with text throughout the app. These elements are causing text to become truncated, go off screen, and sometimes even forcing other text elements to be hidden. With the help of an astounding magic tap, however, you can modify the elements on the screen. UI Elements react to your Magic Tap by asking how they should change their behavior, and will update based on your choices. Explore various scenarios, helping to get the UI Elements in line and make your text readable once more. WWDC21 Challenge: Large Text Challenge As you go through these exercises, here are a few good questions to ask: Should this text be truncated or should it wrap at the boundary? Are there images that are growing too large in size? Are we able to scroll to view all text that’s being presented? These sorts of questions are also great starting points when considering how Dynamic Type may behave in your own app. Once you’ve completed the challenge, we encourage you to explore this project in Xcode and view how we support Dynamic Type in each scenario. We then encourage you to look at your own app — can you apply these concepts to your own project? Resources Scaling Fonts Automatically Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • WWDC21 Daily Digest: Day 3

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 08 Jun 2021 05:00:49 PDT

    Welcome to day 3 of WWDC! Hope you’re staying fresh and focused — we’ve got a lot to show you today. Here’s a look at what the day has in store. (And make sure you don’t miss a thing this week by signing up for WWDC notifications in the Developer app — available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.) Travel back in time But only to yesterday: Here’s the official recap of WWDC21, Day 2. WWDC21 Tuesday@WWDC21 Symbols, signals, and sessions Check out more than 60 new sessions: Demystify SwiftUI. Strike a pose (a hand pose, that is). And explore a series of concurrency sessions (which happen one at a time, we promise) in Swift. WWDC21 Demystify SwiftUI Explore SF Symbols 3 WWDC21 Discoverable design WWDC21 Review code and collaborate in Xcode WWDC21 Discover geometry-aware audio with the Physical Audio Spatialization Engine (PHASE) WWDC21 Detect people, faces, and poses using Vision WWDC21 Explore advanced rendering with RealityKit 2 WWDC21 Enhance your app with Metal ray tracing WWDC21 AR Quick Look, meet Object Capture WWDC21 Meet TextKit 2 WWDC21 Adopt Quick Note WWDC21 Secure login with iCloud Keychain verification codes WWDC21 Triage TestFlight crashes in Xcode Organizer WWDC21 Symbolication: Beyond the basics WWDC21 Swift concurrency: Update a sample app Is that a challenge? Discover fun, interactive ways to learn about the latest technologies and frameworks. Challenge yourself to explore something new this WWDC — and share your creations with others through the Developer Forums (WWDC21-challenges), select Digital Lounges, and social media (#WWDC21Challenges). Challenge: Animated artistry in SwiftUI Challenge: Large Text Challenge: Throwback with SwiftUI Challenge: Design multi-step Shortcuts Challenge: Achievement Unlocked – Title Teasers Challenge: Create a musical instrument in Swift Playgrounds Challenge: Design for declarative device management in your MDM solution A trivial night in the lounges Tonight is Trivia Night in the Developer Tools Digital Lounge, where you’ll face rapid-fire multiple choice questions on tools and frameworks starting at 7 p.m. PDT. And at midday, we host engineers Josh Shaffer and Jacob Xiao for a live Q&A starting at 3 p.m. PT. Register for the Digital Lounges Visit the Developer Tools Digital Lounge (Requires registration) Explore an accessible world At 11 a.m. PDT, engineers and designers behind the Apple Watch share stories about Apple’s approach to accessible design, constant iteration, and community engagement. WWDC21 Accessibility by design: An Apple Watch for everyone Speaking of music... We explored the power of music and audio with the sonic wizards behind five of our favorite apps: the kids’ sandbox Pok Pok Playroom, the interactive bedtime story Loona, the incredible AI-powered NaadSadhana, the inclusive and inventive If Found…, and the extremely summery Poolsuite FM. Find out how they make their apps sound note-perfect right here. Music makers Mindful Cooldowns for Coding… powered by Fitness+ Close out Wednesday at WWDC at 3 p.m. PDT with a 10-minute Mindful Cooldown for Coding with Fitness+ trainer Jessica Skye. That’s it! See you tomorrow!

  • Challenge: Design for declarative device management in your MDM solution

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 08 Jun 2021 05:00:46 PDT

    Calling all MDM developers and enterprise administrators! Explore designing new declarative device management solutions that move management policies from the MDM server to the device. By sending declarations to the device and utilizing the status channel, that device becomes more autonomous and proactive. And your MDM solution will manage many facets of the device experience using the MDM protocol. Begin the challenge Start to identify important areas of the solution that would most benefit from adopting a declarative management approach. What one or more areas would that be? What challenges, if any, would there be to adopt this new approach into your solution? If you are a developer of an MDM solution, you can consider how this integrates into your existing product. If you don’t have an existing MDM solution but are considering building a new one for general or specific use, how can declarative device management accelerate your development? If you’re a device administrator at an organization, consider how you would want your MDM solution to adapt to the new paradigm. And consider those who use managed devices. How might this improve their experience? Resources WWDC21 Meet declarative device management The future of device management is here: Learn how you can support mobile device management while allowing individual devices to be autonomous and proactive, bringing both increased performance and scalability. We'll show you how you can incorporate this declarative model in your MDM solution. Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Design multi-step Shortcuts

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 08 Jun 2021 05:00:35 PDT

    The best shortcuts help us get things done, faster: Show us your best multi-step shortcuts for designer and developer productivity. A multi-step shortcut is composed of multiple actions, often from different apps. The best multi-step shortcuts can be used across platforms, helping people to quickly get things done, often without even needing to open an app. These sorts of shortcuts are a perfect fit for macOS, and now that the Shortcuts app is on the Mac, we want to know how you plan to use your shortcuts to simplify tasks, remove complexity, or just make things in your life easier. Begin the challenge We’re challenging you to share your favorite multi-step shortcuts for designer and developer productivity. Ideally, these shortcuts should meet one or more of the following criteria: Does it employ multiple steps in a novel or interesting way? Does it have a great experience both when used with a tap or click and when used with Siri? Is it uniquely useful on the Mac? Extra credit if the shortcut is fun or enjoyable! You can create an entirely new shortcut for this challenge, or nominate one you’ve already created. Share your shortcut with the developer community on the Developer Forums. Visit the Apple Developer Forums Resources WWDC21 Design great actions for Shortcuts, Siri, and Suggestions Actions are the building blocks of shortcuts. They allow people to take advantage of your app’s functionality even when they're not looking at your app’s interface. We'll show you how to design actions that are useful, easy-to-use, and can be incorporated into powerful multi-step shortcuts.... WWDC21 Meet Shortcuts for macOS Shortcuts is coming to macOS, and your apps are a key part of that process. Discover how you can elevate the capabilities of your app by exposing those features as Shortcuts actions. We’ll show you how to build actions for your macOS apps built with Catalyst or AppKit, deploy actions across... Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Create a musical instrument in Swift Playgrounds

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 08 Jun 2021 05:00:34 PDT

    The first part to composing a musical masterpiece? Making your own instrument from scratch! In this challenge, you’ll use graphical tools to create a musical instrument in Swift Playgrounds and give a performance that will leave your audience floored (and waiting for an encore)! Begin the challenge The Swift Playgrounds app includes several Playgrounds books with starting points to help you explore different coding concepts and ideas. For this challenge, we're asking you to use the Sonic Create book in the Swift Playgrounds app to build a musical instrument of your own creation. Now, this musical instrument doesn’t have to look or sound like an ordinary instrument — it could be a bunch of crystal pianos laid out like piano keys, or a beat-maker board that plays notes on a constant loop. Sonic Create comes with an entire set of sounds and instruments, as well as great graphics for building the look and feel of your instrument. Before you make your own creation, you can use the Sonic Workshop book to learn how to use graphics to play sounds and loops. If you’d like to get in a little musical practice before venturing into the virtual instrument-making world, we recommend first downloading the Sonic Workshop challenge book from Swift Playgrounds, where you can explore using graphics to play sounds and loops. Once you’re familiar with some of the API, you can start creating graphic instances to respond to touch or drag events. You can also check out some of the musical examples provided in the Sensor Create book (iPad only), including “Using Light to Play Sound,” “Synesthesia,” and “Beat Maker.” Ready to build your own instrument? Think about how you might want to make music with only these objects to guide you, and the kinds of sounds you want to create. Consider how the code you write influences the objects — their placement, their resonance, and the kinds of music you can make. How can you design your instrument to be intuitive, and also to invite people to explore and play? As a developer, the tools you make for yourself or others can completely change how other people use those tools and experience the world. (Pretty cool when you think about it!) Once you’ve created something you like, share it with community on the Developer Forums. Visit the Apple Developer Forums Resources Download Swift Playgrounds for macOS Download Swift Playgrounds for iOS Learn more about Swift Playgrounds Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Music makers

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 08 Jun 2021 05:00:31 PDT

    An immersive app doesn’t just look or feel great: It has to sound amazing, too. We asked several of our Apple Design Award-nominated developers to share their philosophy around making music, audio design, and sound. (And occasionally frogs.) Poolsuite FM: Hot fun in the summertime Let’s just come right out and say it: Poolsuite FM is the perfect summer mood. This bitmapped, genre-hopping, beach party jukebox immerses you in 90s design nostalgia while maintaining a great technical experience behind the scenes. And it was invented not by a reggae artist or an Ibiza DJ but an affable Scot named Marty Bell who, prior to developing his poolside player, had no musical training, no tech background, no money to hire help, and — this part is key — definitely no pool. What he did have was the keen idea to synthesize that summer feeling and his well-honed ability to curate music that sounds like sunshine. “I have a pool in my head,” Bell says. “I imagine 10 people hanging out. They’re all way cooler than me. And I think, ‘OK, would I play this song in that scenario?’” he laughs. “The stakes are really high.” Poolsuite FM (known until very recently as Poolside FM) was conceived during the uncommonly dismal Scottish winter of 2014. “It was a very gray time,” Bell says from his home in the Scottish highlands (though he’d recently returned from a “seven-month Covid escape” to the Dominican Republic). “It was cold and spitting rain all the time. Listening to this music just boosted the serotonin in my brain.” Bell wanted to spread sunshine to others, but as a longtime party planner, he also knew that a simple playlist app would be a hard sell. “Everybody thinks they have the best playlist,” he laughs. “I thought, ‘Why don’t I take this summer thing that makes me feel happy and pair with something else that makes me feel happy: cheesy ‘80s beach movies on VHS?” Properly drenched in technological nostalgia and positive vibrations, Poolsuite FM made an instant splash. Its look mirrored the Mac you had in 1994; its playlists were curated by Bell and often drawn from under-the-radar artists on Soundcloud and YouTube; and its sound was decidedly all over the map. “There’s disco, indie rock, and electronic music,” he says, “but I feel like it’s all in the same family.” Today, Poolsuite FM has a deep well of stations like Indie Summer, Hangover Club, Tokyo Disco, and Friday Nite Heat. Its primary channel has 600 tracks; Bell adds a dozen or so every week through his own curation and submissions he gets on social media. “I’d far prefer Poolsuite to be bursting with artists people had never heard of,” he says. And there’s one last surprise: Poolsuite FM has never monetized. Bell relies on volunteer help; to start bringing in money, he’s launched a sunscreen line. “I don’t ever want to monetize Poolsuite,” he says. “I don’t want to track metrics and KPIs and all that. It would kill the vibe.” And summer is nothing if not a vibe. If Found: Intergalactic planetary If Found isn’t like any other game. Or app. (Frankly we’re still working out what to call it.) It’s an immersive sci-fi coming-of-age story centered around a journal kept by its protagonist, a young transgender woman named Kasio. To (greatly) simplify the experience, you progress through the story by erasing each scene with your finger, gradually unifying the (seemingly very disparate) narrative strands as you scrub. All the while, you’re gently guided along by audio designers/composers Eli Rainsberry and Matt Hopkins. “I wanted to get the feeling that you could open this journal and hear everything in your head, like you were daydreaming,” says Rainsberry. A gaming industry vet whose work can also be heard on Bird Alone, A Monster’s Expedition, and Wilmot’s Warehouse, Rainsberry strongly connected with If Found’s subtler, more emotional “notebook” sequences. “That’s where I could work more intimately with the erasing system,” they say. “The cliffside scenes start with softer winds; as Kasio moves along in the story, things gets colder and thinner.” Rainsberry felt the arc of the notebook scenes called for an analog approach, one heavy on acoustic guitar, mandolin, and harmonica. “I wanted to replicate memories fading away,” they say. Hopkins, who records under the moniker 2 Mello, composed the more dramatic scenes — including a cinematic and celestial opening sequence, which drops you into deep space and gradually compels you to erase entire planets (and then something even bigger). To do so, he drew on 90s electronica, leaning in equally to the frenetic roar of The Prodigy and the more analog approach of Aphex Twin. “It’s pretty rare that you get asked to do anything that sounds like pop music for a video game,” he says. “It’s usually more about emotions and mood. But that was my inspiration this time. I even managed to sneak a little breakbeat in there.” If this all sounds a little mysterious, that’s the idea: If Found’s storylines weave around each other like ribbons, coalescing in an ending that also unifies the pair’s work. “I sampled some of Eli’s stuff there, where the notebook is constantly switching places with real life,” says Hopkins. Rainsberry has their own notes about it: “I provide quiet moments to give people space to process what’s going on, and then Matt comes in with incredible climax music. It’s a really nice balance.” Pok Pok Playroom: The kids are alright While crafting the inventive children’s sandbox Pok Pok Playroom, Esther Huybreghts and Mathijs Demaeght made a solemn vow: “We wanted something parents wouldn’t have to mute in a restaurant,” Huybreghts laughs. “We didn’t want media and jingles and jangles that get stuck in your head. We wanted a quieter experience.” To the delight of grown-up diners everywhere, they got it: Pok Pok Playroom is a tasteful feast for little senses. There are hand-drawn switches to flip, gears to grind, blobs to plop together, and bells to ring. But they’re all done with a judicious aural balance that activates young minds while also leaving space for kids to fill in details with their own imaginations. That’s all thanks of sound designer Matt Miller, who took initial audio ideas from Demaeght and jumped into the project with his entire … well, mouth. “I started by making little sounds: ‘choo choo, quack quack,’” says the Toronto-based Miller. “It was all very embarrassing.” It also worked. Miller went on to record every sound in the Playroom: all the sloshing mops, sizzling grills, and wordless dialogue were entirely provided by he and his wife, Cathy. “The idea was to create calming sounds,” says Miller, “something that could be heard a number of times without becoming fatiguing.” (Here we’ll give parents and caregivers a moment to nod appreciatively.) Initially, Miller and Demaeght wanted to use a small number of real-world objects, but they quickly realized that the app’s 500 animations required a broader arsenal of sounds — so Miller went on a hunt. “I got wooden blocks, pots from the kitchen, stuff I bought at a local thrift store,” Miller says, pointing to a boxes of “Foley objects” in the background of his home studio. “I’d just walk into a music store and start pinging on things.” His biggest challenge came in the app’s “musical blobs” section — an abstract playspace of movable shapes. “A musical blob is a completely new idea,” Miller says. “A lot has to come together for that to work.” For instance: The color blue is always a C, while circles (the simplest of shapes) are represented by a single sine wave (the simplest of sounds). “There needs to be a consistency,” says Miller. But like his target audience, Miller also found room for a little play: One of his favorite effects involves a dung beetle that raises its back legs and rolls the dung away. “That rolling sound is just me rolling over the edges of a soup can,” he laughs. “When we can be literal, we’re literal. But it’s fun to throw curveballs, too.” Loona: Night time is the right time One workday morning last year, Loona founder Andrew Yanchurevich texted team sound director Ivan Senkevich to ask why he wasn’t in the office yet. Luckily, Senkevich had very good answer: He was out looking for frogs. More specifically, Senkevich was looking for the sounds of frogs — recordings he could integrate into his team’s sleep app. “My region has a great natural sound,” says Senkevich of the area around his hometown of Minsk, Belarus. “I came into my village often to record.” He had plenty of reason to do so. Part bedtime story, part interactive activity, and all gorgeous, Loona is an app that winds you down with “sleepscapes” — blends of sound, story, and narration designed to soothe your mind at bedtime. (Think of them as meditative interactive storybooks.) To create the appropriately somnolent aural environment, Senkevich often hit the road, traveling around town in search of not just amphibian friends but breezy forests, babbling rivers, and the buzz of insect life. “Some of the sleepscapes are more cartoonish and some more realistic. But we always try to show the natural-ness of the sound.” (Some sounds, he notes, did come from libraries. “You can’t record the sea in Minsk,” Senkevich says with a laugh.) Sound is a crucial ingredient in Loona’s restful recipe of art, storytelling, graphics, music, and sleep science. To hear Yanchurevich tell it, that magical mix is driven by Senkevich’s history in both graphics and audio design. “Ivan came to us with experience in both,” says Yanchurevich. “He feels that connection between two worlds. That’s his superpower.” The resulting app is designed, as Yanchurevich says, to “recreate this safe bubble from your childhood.” In the introductory sleepscape “The Dragon’s Shrine,” you’ll explore a beautifully-rendered marble pagoda while an appropriately-mellifluous voice guides you through calming, repetitive tasks like lighting lanterns and coloring in architectural details. As you progress through sleepscapes, you’ll lose yourself in a fairytale kingdom, explore a dark forest (which sounds a lot like Minsk), or simply cozy up to a crackling fire. Music comes from a team of sound freelance musicians that stretches from Brazil to Asia to the United States and incorporates the culture of each. But the final product is a single design. “We try to present the graphics and audio as one thought,” Senkevich says. NaadSadhana: Extraordinary machine NaadSadhana is the sort of astonishing, future-world app that could only be created by someone with an extremely specialized, almost-impossible skill set. Sandeep Ranade was that someone. With the help of AI, the app listens as you improvise a vocal line, then generates a backing track to match — all in real time. NaadSadhana (a mix of the Sanskrit words for “essence of sound” and “systemic practice”) has neither stock riffs nor repeating loops; its 10 instruments, including virtual tanpura, tabla, and harmonium, are as spontaneous as your vocals. And with features like visual biofeedback, it’s a powerful tool for blind or hard-of-hearing people. Ranade was perfectly positioned to create such a project. The Pune-based developer began singing at 4; by the 11th grade, he was an excellent singer who also exhibited skill in software engineering. “I needed to decide whether to go into either software or music,” Ranade says, “and I decided I wanted to do both professionally.” He pursued that dual track for years (as well as a few others: Ranade has a masters from Johns Hopkins, two decades of tech-world experience, and a thriving career as a Hindustani classical vocalist). All the while, he kept teaching, but inefficiencies in the process nagged at him. Training for Indian classical singing is an intense and demanding process; in the “ancient system,” Ranade says, students would live with their teachers and practice for 10 hours a day, every day. Today, that timing isn’t possible, but the work remains the same. “If you don’t have frequent course correction, your neural pathways won’t converge to where they need to be,” he says. “I needed something that would tell students, ‘You’re just a little bit flat here, a little sharp there.’” Unable to find a solution — and despite having no background in Swift, Xcode, AI, graphic design, or designing mobile apps — he set out to build it himself. From there, Ranade began tweaking. He added an AI to detect what was singing and what was not, but felt room for more. “I wanted accompaniment,” he says. “Instruments like a swarmandal, which has 40 strings, are hard to tune and travel with. I thought, ‘What if something could play close to as well as I can, stay in tune, and fit on my phone?’” He gave the app a test run by recording “Na Corona Karo,” a song about taking precautions against COVID-19 that became a viral hit shared by A.R. Rahman and others. But Ranade was most moved by the reaction he got from the leaders in his field. “Musical geniuses like my late guru thought it was real human accompaniment,” he says. “They were astonished it was software.” Today, NadSaadhana features automatic harmonies on violin, piano, and harmonium as well as percussion instruments like shakers and ankle bells. Its AI is trained not to adjust to the complexities of each instrument, but to the mix of the orchestra and the mood of the singer. “It’s not as simple as ‘This is the note he’s singing, so here are the chords,’” Ranade says. “There has to be context: Is he singing slower or faster? Does he sound sadder or more upbeat? That changes the chords you hear, from all the thousands possible.” Some bands rage against machines; Ranade’s future is working more closely with them.

  • Challenge: Achievement Unlocked – Title Teasers

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 08 Jun 2021 05:00:28 PDT

    When you create achievements that truly surprise and delight your players as they make their way through a game, you can help elicit a feeling of accomplishment, or even make the player laugh. Most of us have experienced playing games where we have unlocked some kind of achievement or trophy that stirs some of these emotions. This is exactly what we want you to consider when you create Game Center achievements for your apps or games — and now, we’re challenging you to show the developer community your best, funniest, strangest, and most delightful achievements. Begin the challenge This challenge focuses on crafting an achievement that gives someone just enough of a clue to send them on their way. That means how you present the locked version of your achievement is crucially important. Focus on ensuring you’re providing just enough of a hint that the player doesn’t get frustrated. And, of course, be sure to make the player feel it was worth it with the unlocked version once they do figure out how to achieve it! We welcome all achievements, new, old, existing, or imaginary: Show off locked and unlocked versions of your “teaser” from one of your existing apps or games, or put your wordsmithery to work and create an entirely new achievement. And share it with the developer community on the Developer Forums. Best of all, we’ve made it easy for you to participate and dream up awesome achievements even if you haven’t yet implemented Game Center or you want to try something entirely new: Just download the attached Game Center achievement template. Visit the Apple Developer Forums Best practices for great achievements It’s a lot of fun to create unique and engaging achievements to connect people with your app or game. Below are a few of our recommendations when thinking about writing and designing achievements. Be creative with an achievement’s title, but straightforward with its description Although most people appreciate entertaining titles, they expect an achievement’s description to specify how to earn it. If you were to create a WWDC21 achievement, for instance, you might write the following: Title: Code Completionist Description: Watched every WWDC21 Code-Along session. Be succinct The Game Center achievement card limits your title and description to two lines each before truncating the text — brevity is key to a great achievement. Think inclusively Follow the Human Interface Guidelines around inclusivity when creating achievements. The best jokes, puns, and wordplay are those that are intuitive and friendly to everyone who might interact with your app or game, and make players feel recognized and rewarded. Add unique, high-quality images People appreciate earning unique achievements that remind them of each accomplishment. When you create custom artwork, you can help that achievement stand out from the others in your app or game and make it more recognizable to people who interact with it. You can learn more about how to design great achievements in Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines, and in the WWDC20 session “Design for Game Center.” WWDC20 Design for Game Center Get your game's interface ready for Game Center. We’ll show you how to deliver personalized touches to the GameKit interface that provide a rich experience for players, with features like achievements, leaderboards, and multiplayer gaming. Learn how to customize your game’s access point, design... Download the Achievement Unlocked Challenge material Learn more about designing achievements Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • The music of WWDC21

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 08 Jun 2021 01:54:18 PDT

    WWDC is powered by three things: developers, ingenuity, and music. (Also coffee, so maybe four things.) And while we might not be able to gather together this year, we can always connect through shared sounds — just like we do in person. This year’s expertly curated playlists are perfect for moments of energy, focus, relaxation. They’re also great for simply setting the scene for an amazing week. WWDC 2021 Turns out our official WWDC playlist is also a great summer mixtape. From Ariana Grande to Wolf Alice, here are the sounds of WWDC21. Listen to the official WWDC21 playlist Power Up The heartbeat of the week, the summer’s biggest artists. Welcome to WWDC21. Listen to the WWDC21 Power Up playlist Coding Energy Inspiring. Empowering. Energetic. Nothing but good vibes in this set of upbeat tracks. Listen to the WWDC21 Coding Energy playlist Coding Chill Let your mind unwind with these elegant electronic sounds, lo-fi rhythms, and relaxing beats. Listen to the WWDC21 Coding Chill playlist Coding Focus Tune out the world and center your mind with these mellow sounds. Listen to the WWDC21 Coding Focus playlist

  • WWDC21 Daily Digest: Day 2

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 22:00:36 PDT

    Welcome to your WWDC21 Daily Digest. Now that our Keynote and Platform State of the Union have concluded, it’s time to get down to work. Our first sessions have arrived, with labs, coding challenges, and the Digital Lounges also starting today. With so much to do, it's hard to know where to start, so we’ve put together an overview of everything you need to have a great second day at WWDC. Our first tip: Make sure you don’t miss a thing this week by signing up for WWDC notifications in the Developer app — available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Cool down with Fitness+ Join our Fitness+ team every day at 4 p.m. PDT for a Mindful Cooldown for Coding, right on your device or Apple TV. Rewatch the Keynote and State of the Union Did you miss out on Day 1? Catch up on all the announcements in under three minutes with our daily recap, or rewatch the Keynote and Platform State of the Union in full. WWDC21 Monday@WWDC21 WWDC21 Keynote WWDC21 Keynote (ASL) WWDC21 Platforms State of the Union WWDC21 Platforms State of the Union (ASL) Explore pavilions, labs, and lounges The WWDC tab of the Developer app has everything you need to have a great online conference experience this year. Let’s take a brief tour. Pop into a pavilion: With more than 200 sessions, labs, and activities, pavilions can help you find the most relevant content on the topics that matter most to you. Each pavilion contains a daily schedule with relevant sessions and labs, featured content and challenges, links to the Digital Lounges, and more. You can find our pavilions in the WWDC tab of the Developer app, listed below your personalized schedule. Explore the latest sessions and labs for Augmented Reality, seek out the latest in SwiftUI, or check out the demos and documentation from Developer Tools. Lab life: Our Apple engineers and designers are here all week to help provide guidance and conversation around the latest frameworks, APIs, and best practices. Members of the Apple Developer Program, Apple Developer Enterprise Program, or 2021 Swift Student Challenge Winners can request a lab appointment. There are dozens of available labs every day — if you’re eligible to request an appointment, sign up now! Hang out in a Digital Lounge: For more of a group experience, you can join the Digital Lounges and connect with Apple engineers and designers around select topics. We’re offering a small number of lounges this year, hosted by Developer Tools as well as engineers and designers from our SwiftUI, Accessibility, and Machine Learning teams. Register for the Digital Lounges Visit the Accessibility Digital Lounge (Requires registration) Visit the Developer Tools Digital Lounge (Requires registration) Visit the Machine Learning Digital Lounge (Requires registration) Visit the SwiftUI Digital Lounge (Requires registration) Sessions, sessions, everywhere We’ve got more than 60 sessions arriving on Day 2 that feature Xcode Cloud, SharePlay, inclusive design, spatial audio, ShazamKit, and more. Here are some of our must-watch videos of the day: WWDC21 What‘s new in Swift WWDC21 Meet async/await in Swift WWDC21 Meet TestFlight on Mac WWDC21 Meet Xcode Cloud WWDC21 Meet DocC documentation in Xcode WWDC21 Apple’s privacy pillars in focus WWDC21 The process of inclusive design WWDC21 The practice of inclusive design WWDC21 Immerse your app in spatial audio WWDC21 Create 3D models with Object Capture WWDC21 Use the camera for keyboard input in your app Challenge, accepted Discover fun, interactive ways to learn about the latest technologies and frameworks with our coding and design challenges. No matter your level of expertise, challenge yourself to explore something new this WWDC — and share your creations with others through the Developer Forums, select Digital Lounges, and social media. Check out some of our favorite challenges for Day 2: Challenge: Speech Synthesizer Simulator Challenge: Achievement Unlocked – Fabulous Fails Challenge: Create your first 3D model with Object Capture Challenge: Animated artistry in SwiftUI Challenge: Build an app using built-in Sound Classification Drop the (virtual) needle What’s WWDC without a little mood music? Our official WWDC playlists are ready for your ears: Check out official and lovingly-curated mixes Power Up, Focus, Chill, and Energy. The music of WWDC21 Up, up, and away We think this is coolest job we’ve heard about in a long, long time: Our guest speaker today is the incredible Tiera Fletcher, who at age 22 landed her dream job as an aerospace engineer on NASA’s Space Launch System, the most powerful rocket created in the history of the universe. (Well, that we know of, anyway.) Learn what it’s like to design components for a rocket that’s 322 feet tall, produces 8.8 million pounds of thrust, and is currently slated to ferry humans to the moon, Mars, and (picture this in a dramatic echoey voice) beyond. WWDC21 Out of this world... on to Mars And that’s it! See you tomorrow for (much) more.

  • App Store Review Guideline updates now available

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 13:01:29 PDT

    The App Store is a safe and trusted place for customers to discover and download apps, and a great opportunity for developers. The App Store Review Guideline changes and clarifications support new features in upcoming OS releases, better protect customers, and help your apps go through the review process as smoothly as possible. In addition, two updates have been made to the App Review contact form. If you appeal an app rejection, you can now specify if you believe your app was rejected due to unfair treatment (including political or other bias). And you can now report an app if you believe it presents a trust or safety concern, or is in violation of the App Store Review Guidelines. 1.1.4: “Hookup” apps that may include pornography or be used to facilitate prostitution will be rejected. 1.2.1: Added new guideline for creator content. 1.4.3 and 5.1.1(ix): Addressed in-app sales from licensed and legal cannabis dispensaries. 1.7: Apps for reporting alleged criminal activity must involve local law enforcement, and can only be offered in countries where such involvement is active. 2.3.1: Clarified that misleading marketing, whether it takes place inside or outside of the App Store, is grounds for removal from the App Store and the Apple Developer Program. 2.3.10: Simplified the rule on irrelevant information in app metadata. 3.1.1: Clarified that digital gift cards can only be sold using in-app purchase, and that physical gift cards that are sold within an app and then mailed to customers may use payment methods other than in-app purchase. 3.1.2(a): Expanded the guideline that allows cellular carrier apps to include music and video subscriptions in pre-defined bundles attached to data plans to clarify that carrier apps can include other kinds of subscriptions, so long as in-app purchase is supported for new users and the carrier provides a mechanism for customers to revert to an in-app purchase subscription after the bundled service expires or terminates. 3.1.3: Clarified the email communication policy for apps that are permitted to use purchase methods other than in-app purchase. 4.2: Clarified that apps that do not provide adequate utility may not be accepted on the App Store. 4.3: Added drinking game apps as a saturated category. 4.7: Reformatted by adding 4.7.1 and 4.7.2 for clarity. 5.1.1(v): Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion. 5.6 and 5.6.1 – 5.6.4: Expanded the Developer Code of Conduct to address additional developer trust and safety issues. New rules in this section require developer identity information to be accurate and up to date; make clear that manipulating any element of the App Store experience such as reviews and charts is not permitted; and that excessive customer reports about concerns with an app may be a factor in deciding whether the developer is complying with the Code of Conduct. Read the App Store Review Guidelines

  • Updated agreements now available

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 13:00:34 PDT

    The Program License Agreement, Schedules 1, 2, and 3, and Apple Developer Agreement have been updated to provide clarification, and to support updated policies and upcoming features. Please review the changes below and accept the updated terms as needed. Program License Agreement Purpose and Section 7: Updated TestFlight terms to support Mac apps. Definitions and Section 3.3.55: Specified requirements and restrictions with respect to the use of ShazamKit. Definitions and Section 3.3.56: Specified restrictions and obligations with respect to the use of the Xcode Cloud service. Sections 5.3, 11.2(f) and 14.8: Clarified legal export control requirements. Sections 14.3 and 14.5: Updated notice information. Attachment 2, Section 3.5: Specified requirements with respect to use of end-user consumption data. Schedule 1 Section 2.3: Clarified legal export control requirements. Section 6.3: Clarified legal export control requirements. Exhibit A: Updated Apple Services LATAM LLC as agent for the marketing and End-User download of the Licensed Applications by End-Users located in Latin America in Section 1. Indicated countries where Custom Applications are available in Sections 1-2. Exhibit B: Updated reference to the current Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions in Sections 1–2. Clarified the scope of product claims include HealthKit and HomeKit frameworks in Section 5. Clarified legal export control requirements in Section 7. Exhibit C: Updated the URL for Apple Media Services terms in Section 11. Exhibit D: Clarified that paid promotion of an app on the App Store may be presented in a promotional placement and designated as advertising content. Clarified developers who may submit complaints pursuant to country-specific platform-to-business regulation. Review the updated Program License Agreement. Schedules 2 and 3 (Paid Applications Agreement) Section 2.3: Clarified legal export control requirements. Section 3.2: Specified practices for the collection and remittance of telecommunication taxes. Specified requirements and responsibilities for the selection and maintenance of tax categorization for apps and in-app purchases in the App Store Connect site. Section 3.6: Clarified responsibility for taxes relating to Apple’s commission and end-user prices. Section 3.8: Removed language stating Apple may retain its commission when it issues refunds. Section 6.3: Removed language stating Apple may retain its commission when it issues refunds. Section 7.3: Clarified legal export control requirements. Review the updated Paid Applications Agreement. Apple Developer Agreement Section 11: Removed language stating Apple may use any information, suggestions or recommendations you provide pursuant to the Agreement for any purpose. Section 16: Clarified legal export control requirements. View all terms and guidelines.

  • WWDC21 session and topic tags now available

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 12:10:14 PDT

    You can now connect with over 1,000 Apple engineers on the Apple Developer Forums through WWDC21 tags specific to sessions and topics. Learn more

  • See what’s new on Apple platforms

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 12:09:27 PDT

    Create seamless, intelligent, and engaging experiences with the latest exciting advancements in iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS Monterey, tvOS 15, and watchOS 8. Get the Xcode 13 beta, which includes SDKs for all Apple platforms. Learn more about what’s new

  • Xcode 13 is now available

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 12:08:55 PDT

    Xcode 13 adds powerful new team development features, perfect for working with Xcode Cloud as well as with GitHub, Bitbucket, and GitLab collaboration features. Initiate, review, comment, and merge pull requests directly within Xcode. See your teammates’ comments right inside your code. And quickly compare any two versions of your code files. Learn more

  • Introducing Xcode Cloud

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 12:07:47 PDT

    Xcode Cloud is a continuous integration and delivery service built into Xcode and designed expressly for Apple developers. It accelerates the development and delivery of high-quality apps by bringing together cloud-based tools that help you build apps, run automated tests in parallel, deliver apps to testers, and view and manage user feedback. Sign up for the beta today. Learn more about Xcode Cloud

  • Machine learning updates now available

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 12:06:18 PDT

    The power of Create ML is now available as a Swift framework on iOS and iPadOS, in addition to macOS. Programmatically experiment and automate model creation in Swift scripts or playgrounds. Build dynamic app features that leverage Create ML APIs to train models directly from user input or on-device behavior, providing personalized and adaptive experiences while preserving user privacy. You can also take advantage of new templates and training capabilities, APls for Vision and Natural languages, and more. Learn more about machine learning

  • Augmented reality updates now available

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 12:05:53 PDT

    ARKit 5 introduces new features and improvements that make the AR experiences in your apps better than ever. You can now place Location Anchors in even more cities, pin virtual content within your App Clips or ARKit apps to a printed or digital App Clip Code, take advantage of Face Tracking in the Ultra Wide camera on iPad Pro (5th generation), and more. Learn more about augmented reality

  • Introducing SharePlay

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 12:04:14 PDT

    SharePlay gives people the ability to share experiences right inside FaceTime in an entirely new way. Use the Group Activities API to bring movies, TV, music, and more from your app into a space where people are already connecting with each other. Learn more about SharePlay

  • Introducing ShazamKit

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 12:03:17 PDT

    Enrich your app experience with audio recognition. Now you can match music to the millions of songs in Shazam's vast catalog or make any prerecorded audio recognizable by building your own custom catalog using audio from video, podcasts, and more. Learn more about ShazamKit

  • What’s new for apps on the App Store

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 12:02:40 PDT

    Take advantage of the latest capabilities to improve the discovery of your app on the App Store, and deliver high-quality app and in-app purchase experiences. Showcase your in-app events right on the App Store. Create additional versions of your product page to showcase different features or content, each with a unique URL. Try different app icons, screenshots, and app previews on your default App Store product page and compare their performance to understand what users like most. Beta test your Mac apps using TestFlight. Take advantage of powerful, modern Swift-based APIs for in-app purchases with StoreKit 2. And provide more seamless support for in-app purchases with new APIs that let users request refunds and manage their subscriptions within your app. Help players discover and play your game with Game Center widgets, and build social experiences with the new Friends API. And much more. Find out what’s new

  • SF Symbols 3 beta now available

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 12:01:58 PDT

    SF Symbols 3 introduces over 600 new symbols, enhanced color customization, new inspector with controls for rendering and color configuration, and improved support for custom symbols. Learn more about SF Symbols

  • Essentials

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:41:24 PDT

    Get started with Augmented Reality Build the next generation of augmented reality apps. Get started with app design Discover tools, technologies, and guidance for designing great apps. Get started with SwiftUI The fastest path to a great app on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. Get started with Accessibility Your apps are most powerful when they empower everyone. Get started with the App Store In-app events, product page customization, and so much more. Get started with gaming Level up your game design and development skills. Bring SharePlay to your app with Group Activities Create shared group experiences — right in your app. Get started developing for Apple Watch Learn how to create great apps for Apple Watch. Get started with Swift Concurrency Async awaits: Discover asynchronous and concurrent programming in Swift. Explore Swift Playgrounds Coding Challenges Explore daily challenges in Swift Playgrounds.

  • Safari &amp; Web

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:41:24 PDT

    The web developer’s toolkit Discover the latest improvements to Safari and WebKit. Developer Documentation: Safari Web Extensions Create web extensions that work in Safari and other browsers.

  • Coding &amp; Design Challenges

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:41:23 PDT

    Discover fun, interactive ways to learn about the latest technologies and frameworks. Solve a puzzle using memory debugging techniques or script a short film in AR with Apple’s speech synthesis engine. Design SwiftUI views with a time-hopping twist. Explore Create ML or build visualizations in Swift Playgrounds. No matter your level of expertise, challenge yourself to explore something new — and share your creations with others through the Developer Forums and social media. Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions Visit the Apple Developer Forums Tuesday Speech Synthesizer Simulator Accessibility & Inclusion Simulate a conversation using speech synthesis. WWDC21 Challenge: Speech Synthesizer Simulator Simulate a conversation using speech synthesis. Build an app that recognizes custom audio through ShazamKit Audio & Video ShazamKit lets you use custom audio catalogs inside your app to recognize that same audio “in the wild.” Dream up your own ShazamKit audio matching experience as you work off a starter sample project. WWDC21 Challenge: Build an app that recognizes custom audio through ShazamKit ShazamKit lets you use custom audio catalogs inside your app to recognize that same audio “in the wild.” Dream up your own ShazamKit audio matching experience as you work off a starter sample project. Create your first 3D model with Object Capture Augmented Reality Object capture provides a quick and easy way to create lifelike 3D models of real-world objects using just a few images. Use the new Object Capture Swift API to build your very own 3D model from scratch. WWDC21 Challenge: Create your first 3D model with Object Capture Object capture provides a quick and easy way to create lifelike 3D models of real-world objects using just a few images. Use the new Object Capture Swift API to build your very own 3D model from scratch. Design a quiz in Swift Playgrounds Essentials Design a “How well do you know me?” quiz using Swift Playgrounds to see who knows the most about your quirks and interests. WWDC21 Challenge: Design a quiz in Swift Playgrounds Design a “How well do you know me?” quiz using Swift Playgrounds to see who knows the most about your quirks and interests. Achievement Unlocked — Fabulous Fails Graphics & Games Creating achievements that surprise and delight players as they make their way through a game can help provide a strong feeling of accomplishment, and even make people laugh. We challenge you to create or share a Fabulous Fails achievement that is fun, strange, and delightful. WWDC21 Challenge: Achievement Unlocked – Fabulous Fails Creating achievements that surprise and delight players as they make their way through a game can help provide a strong feeling of accomplishment, and even make people laugh. We challenge you to create or share a Fabulous Fails achievement that is fun, strange, and delightful. Build an app using built-in Sound Classification ML & Vision With Sound Classification, you can create experiences for camera, video, productivity, and game apps on all Apple platforms — and for this challenge, we’re inviting you to explore a sample project and build your own. WWDC21 Challenge: Build an app using built-in Sound Classification With Sound Classification, you can create experiences for camera, video, productivity, and game apps on all Apple platforms — and for this challenge, we’re inviting you to explore a sample project and build your own. Animated artistry in SwiftUI SwiftUI & UI Frameworks Put trigonometry to good use and show us your artistic side by creating a stunning graphical animation in SwiftUI. WWDC21 Challenge: Animated artistry in SwiftUI Put trigonometry to good use and show us your artistic side by creating a stunning graphical animation in SwiftUI. Wednesday Large Text Challenge Accessibility & Inclusion Design for large text sizes by modifying the user interface of a simple app. WWDC21 Challenge: Large Text Design for large text sizes by modifying the user interface of a simple app. Design multi-step shortcuts Design The best shortcuts help us get repetitive things done more easily: Develop a multi-step shortcut for designer or programmer productivity. WWDC21 Challenge: Design multi-step Shortcuts The best shortcuts help us get repetitive things done more easily: Develop a multi-step shortcut for designer or programmer productivity. Design for declarative device management in your MDM solution Education & Enterprise Calling all MDM developers and enterprise administrators! Explore designing new declarative device management solutions that move management policies from the MDM server to the device. WWDC21 Challenge: Design for declarative device management in your MDM solution Calling all MDM developers and enterprise administrators! Explore designing new declarative device management solutions that move management policies from the MDM server to the device. Create a musical instrument in Swift Playgrounds Essentials The first part to composing a musical masterpiece is making your own instrument from scratch! Use graphical tools to create a musical instrument that will leave your audience floored (and waiting for an encore)! WWDC21 Challenge: Create a musical instrument in Swift Playgrounds The first part to composing a musical masterpiece? Making your own instrument from scratch! In this challenge, you’ll use graphical tools to create a musical instrument that will leave your audience floored (and waiting for an encore)! Achievement Unlocked — Title Teasers Graphics & Games Some achievements can pique a player's interest into exploring something new in your app — even if the achievement only has its locked text visible. We challenge you to write a Title Teaser achievement that gets people excited about what they might uncover. WWDC21 Challenge: Achievement Unlocked – Title Teasers Some achievements can pique a player's interest into exploring something new in your app — even if the achievement only has its locked text visible. We challenge you to write a Title Teaser achievement that gets people excited about what they might uncover. Throwback with SwiftUI SwiftUI & UI Frameworks Whether you’ve been coding for 40 years, you’re new to the SwiftUI scene, or you’re a designer — everyone loves a good throwback. Give in to the nostalgia and imagine what your app might look like if designed for the Mac or iPhone interfaces of yesteryear. WWDC21 Challenge: Throwback with SwiftUI Whether you’ve been coding for 40 years, you’re new to the SwiftUI scene, or you’re a designer — everyone loves a good throwback. Give in to the nostalgia and imagine what your app might look like if designed for the Mac or iPhone interfaces of yesteryear. Thursday Voice Control Synonyms Accessibility & Inclusion Challenge yourself to make your app accessible through Voice Control and provide support for voice-based interaction. WWDC21 Challenge: Voice Control Synonyms Challenge yourself to make your app accessible through Voice Control and provide support for voice-based interaction. Framework Freestyle Augmented Reality One ARKit sample app. One framework of your choosing. What can you create in 100 lines of code or less? WWDC21 Challenge: Framework Freestyle One ARKit sample app. One framework of your choosing. What can you create in 100 lines of code or less? Memgraph capture the flag Developer Tools One of our engineers has hidden a memory easter egg in our secret app. We need your help to find it, but all we know is that it has the format flag_<unknown_string_here>@WWDC. Using only macOS command line tools, investigate the memory issue, recover missing symbols, and capture the rogue flag. WWDC21 Challenge: Memgraph Capture the Flag One of our engineers has hidden a memory easter egg in our secret app. We need your help to find it. Create amazing documentation Developer Tools Explore Xcode's new documentation features and learn how to add documentation to your own framework or package — or to your favorite open source project. WWDC21 Challenge: Create amazing documentation Explore Xcode's new documentation features and learn how to add documentation to your own framework or package — or to your favorite open source project. Create fun visual effects in Swift Playgrounds Essentials Ever wonder how to make it seem like confetti is raining down from the sky? Or how to create a kaleidoscope effect using code? This challenge gets you to create an artistic rendering using only shapes and your imagination. WWDC21 Challenge: Create fun visual effects in Swift Playgrounds Ever wonder how to make it seem like confetti is raining down from the sky? Or how to create a kaleidoscope effect using code? This challenge gets you to create an artistic rendering using only shapes and your imagination. Achievement Unlocked — Series Finale Graphics & Games Whether your game is divided into chapters, levels, or challenges, you can use achievements to help progress your narrative in unique and interesting ways. In our last challenge of the week — our series finale — we invite you to create a series of achievements that tell a story and encourage people to complete a set of tasks. WWDC21 Challenge: Achievement Unlocked — Series Finale Whether your game is divided into chapters, levels, or challenges, you can use achievements to help progress your narrative in unique and interesting ways. In this challenge — our series finale — we invite you to create a series of achievements that tell a story and encourage people... Focus on Focus in SwiftUI SwiftUI & UI Frameworks Focus can help people move through your app efficiently, whether they’re using the keyboard, Siri Remote, Apple Watch Digital Crown, or accessibility features. Find an interaction within your app and show us how you would use the SwiftUI Focus APIs to fine-tune that interaction. WWDC21 Challenge: Focus on Focus APIs in SwiftUI Focus can help people move through your app efficiently, whether they’re using the keyboard, Siri Remote, Apple Watch Digital Crown, or accessibility features. Find an interaction within your app and show us how you would use the SwiftUI Focus APIs to fine-tune that interaction. Friday VoiceOver Maze Accessibility & Inclusion Navigate to the end of a dark maze using VoiceOver as your guide. WWDC21 Challenge: VoiceOver Maze Navigate to the end of a dark maze using VoiceOver as your guide. Explore spatial audio soundscapes Audio & Video Use spatial audio to tell more immersive stories in your app and explore the demo used in the “Immerse your app in spatial audio” session. WWDC21 Challenge: Explore spatial audio soundscapes Use spatial audio to tell more immersive stories in your app and explore the demo used in the “Immerse your app in spatial audio” session. Create an engaging tutorial Developer Tools Learn how to write an interactive tutorial to show developers how to use your own project — or add a tutorial to an existing open source project. WWDC21 Challenge: Create an engaging tutorial Learn how to write an interactive tutorial to show developers how to use your own project — or add a tutorial to an existing open source project. Sense the world around you in Swift Playgrounds Essentials Just like our senses, our devices constantly gather data from their environment, and can use that information to do interesting and important things. In this challenge, you'll harness this device sensor data to create a visualization or experience of your choosing. WWDC21 Challenge: Sense the world around you in Swift Playgrounds Just like our senses, our devices constantly gather data from their environment, and can use that information to do interesting and important things. In this challenge, you'll harness this device sensor data to create a visualization or experience of your choosing. Prototype with SwiftUI SwiftUI & UI Frameworks While SwiftUI is a powerful framework, one of its key features is its simplicity. Designers with very little knowledge of code can easily create prototypes with human-readable syntax and interactive Xcode Previews. As we say goodbye to WWDC21, we invite you to say “hello, world” with a brilliant SwiftUI-based prototype. WWDC21 Challenge: Prototype with SwiftUI While SwiftUI is a powerful framework, one of its key features is its simplicity. Designers with very little knowledge of code can easily create prototypes with human-readable syntax and interactive Xcode Previews. In this Challenge, we invite you to say “hello, world” with a brilliant...

  • Education &amp; Enterprise

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:41:23 PDT

    Bring Apple hardware, software, and services into your classroom and office.

  • System Services

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:41:23 PDT

    Modernizing your apps with Core Data Core Data and concurrency: better together. What’s new in DriverKit Build safer, more secure device drivers in userspace. Explore CloudKit Your destination for everything CloudKit.

  • Accessibility &amp; Inclusion

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:41:23 PDT

    Inclusion by design The process and practice of welcoming everyone into your app or game's experience. Explore the Accessibility Digital Lounge Join Apple engineers and designers from the Accessibility teams for text-based discussions and Q&As.

  • Swift

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:41:23 PDT

    Meet Swift Concurrency Async awaits: Discover asynchronous and concurrent programming in Swift. Developer Documentation: Swift Build apps using a powerful open language.

  • Audio &amp; Video

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:41:23 PDT

    Bring SharePlay to your app with Group Activities Create shared group experiences — right in your app. What’s new in HTTP Live Streaming Gapless playback, dynamic pre-rolls, and new tooling to make your live streams look better than ever. What’s new in tvOS Build great apps for Apple TV with the latest tools and technologies.

  • Design

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:41:23 PDT

    Explore SF Symbols 3 Design and build with colorized symbols. Inclusion by design The process and practice of welcoming everyone into your app or game’s experience. The developer’s guide to the Human Interface Guidelines Explore resources and guidelines that help you build apps for all Apple platforms.

  • Photos &amp; Camera

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:41:23 PDT

    Developer Documentation: AVFoundation Work with audiovisual assets, control device cameras, process audio, and configure system audio interactions. Developer Documentation: PhotoKit Work with image and video assets managed by the Photos app.

  • ML &amp; Vision

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:41:23 PDT

    What’s new in ML and Computer Vision Classify sounds, extract document data, and bring new kinds of interaction into your app. Explore the Machine Learning Digital Lounge Join Apple engineers and designers from our Machine Learning teams for text-based discussions and Q&As.

  • Privacy &amp; Security

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:41:23 PDT

    Build privacy in your app Discover Apple’s four pillars of privacy. Secure your app Learn how Apple devices, platforms, and services provide world-class security and privacy.

  • Developer Tools

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:41:23 PDT

    Explore Xcode Cloud essentials Meet Apple’s continuous integration service, Xcode Cloud. Create great documentation with DocC Build and share documentation for Swift packages and frameworks, directly in Xcode. Power, performance, and you Optimize your apps for peak power and performance. Create great tests with Xcode 13 Bugs, beware: Learn about the latest in testing. Explore the Developer Tools Digital Lounge Join Apple engineers and designers from our Developer Tools teams for text-based discussions and Q&As.

  • Business &amp; Distribution

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:41:23 PDT

    What’s new with in-app purchase Learn how to deliver high-quality in-app purchase experiences. What’s new with the App Store In-app events, product page customization, and so much more.

  • SwiftUI &amp; UI Frameworks

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:41:23 PDT

    Simplify with SwiftUI The easiest way to create apps on Apple platforms. Unleash UIKit Utilize the latest UIKit features to build great iPhone, iPad, and Mac Catalyst apps. Bring your iPhone and iPad apps to Mac Learn how to build great Mac Catalyst apps and ship iPhone and iPad apps for Macs with M1. Raise your wrist for watchOS 8 Access to the Always-On Display. Region-based user notifications. And so much more. Code-Along: Build a great Mac app in SwiftUI Code along with us and build a Mac app from start to finish in SwiftUI. Explore the SwiftUI Digital Lounge Join Apple engineers and designers from the SwiftUI team for text-based discussions and Q&As.

  • App Services

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:41:23 PDT

    Bring SharePlay to your app with Group Activities Create shared group experiences — right in your app. Developer Documentation: Notifications Learn more about notifications, delivery times, and Focus. Developer Documentation: SiriKit Explore the latest updates to the Intents and Intents UI frameworks. Developer Documentation: WidgetKit Show relevant, glanceable content from your app on the iOS Home screen or macOS Notification Center.

  • Augmented Reality

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:41:23 PDT

    3D Content Creation Bring your 3D assets to life. Produce high-quality AR experiences Augment your reality.

  • Graphics &amp; Games

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:41:23 PDT

    The game developer's toolkit Level up your game design and development skills. Meet Metal Rendering and Compute Optimize your graphics and compute pipelines for top-tier performance.

  • Health &amp; Fitness

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:41:23 PDT

    Build a Research and Care app Take the tedium out of paper surveys with ResearchKit and CareKit. What’s new in health and fitness Build apps that help people live healthy lives.

  • Challenge: Build an app that recognizes custom audio through ShazamKit

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 06:00:35 PDT

    ShazamKit enables you to generate and use custom audio catalogs inside your app to recognize audio “in the wild.” This challenge invites you to dream up your own audio matching experience as you work off a sample project. ShazamKit accepts audio signatures from any source: music, a movie soundtrack, or spoken word. For example, a camera app could provide special effects or filters based on the genre of audio being played in an environment. An educational app may offer precisely synchronized, auxiliary content for a streamed lecture on a second device. Or a broadcast show could unlock a rich, AR-based second screen experience for each episode. Begin the challenge To begin exploring ShazamKit, download the “Building a Custom Catalog and Matching Audio” sample code project from “Create custom audio experiences with ShazamKit.” What kind of app do you want to create — a game, interactive experience for education, or a mind-blowing augmented reality experience perfectly synchronized with video content playing on your Apple TV? Get creative and show off your ideas for iOS, macOS, tvOS, or watchOS. Need support, or want help from the community as you explore Sound Classification? You can share your progress in the Developer Forums. Visit the Apple Developer Forums Resources WWDC21 Explore ShazamKit Take advantage of Shazam’s exact audio matching capabilities within your app when you use ShazamKit. Learn how you can harness the immense Shazam catalog to create all sorts of experiences, including quickly recognizing the exact song playing in the background of a video captured by your app,... WWDC21 Create custom audio experiences with ShazamKit Bring custom audio matching to your app with ShazamKit. Discover how you can use Shazam's exact audio matching to recognize audio against any source when you use custom catalogs on device. Download our starter project and code along with the presenter as we guide you through the process of... Building a Custom Catalog and Matching Audio ShazamKit Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Rewatch the Platforms State of the Union

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 05:00:24 PDT

    Join the worldwide developer community for an in-depth look at the future of Apple platforms. WWDC21 Platforms State of the Union Take a deeper dive into the new tools, technologies, and advances across Apple platforms that will help you create even better apps. WWDC21 Platforms State of the Union (ASL) Take a deeper dive into the new tools, technologies, and advances across Apple platforms that will help you create even better apps. This version includes American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation.

  • Rewatch the Keynote

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 07 Jun 2021 05:00:00 PDT

    Join the worldwide developer community for an in-depth look at the future of Apple platforms, directly from Apple Park. WWDC21 Keynote The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off with exciting reveals, inspiration, and new opportunities. Join the worldwide developer community for an in-depth look at the future of Apple platforms, directly from Apple Park. WWDC21 Keynote (ASL) The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off with exciting reveals, inspiration, and new opportunities. Join the worldwide developer community for an in-depth look at the future of Apple platforms, directly from Apple Park. This version includes American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation.

  • Challenge: Build an app using built-in Sound Classification

    Apple Developer News · Sun, 06 Jun 2021 07:00:56 PDT

    With Sound Classification, you can create experiences for camera, video, productivity, and game apps on all Apple platforms — and for this challenge, we’re inviting you to explore a sample project and build your own. When you use the built-in sound classifier in Sound Analysis you have access to over 300 different sound classes trained on a massive amount of data to ensure great model performance. The model won’t predict just a single sound at once: It returns multiple labels with individual confidence scores for each so that you can understand all the sounds being heard at a given time. The API in Sound Analysis provides a full list of all trained classes, you decide which ones you care about, ignoring all others. You could use the speech detector, for example, to identify when someone has finished speaking. Even further, you have control over the sampling window for the prediction and can apply sound-specific confidence thresholds to greatly improve the real world accuracy of the features you will create. Begin the challenge For this challenge, we invite you to brainstorm how you could incorporate Sound Classification into an existing app or a brand new app idea. You can use sound classifiers on all Apple platforms — Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or Apple TV — allowing you to explore a variety of different ideas and situations. For example, a camera app could enable people to quickly locate the precise moment in personal videos where things like laughter occurred, or listen for specific sounds during video capture to trigger special effects and overlays in the camera frame. A video editing or productivity app could leverage sound classification to help someone quickly organize media assets based on the sounds that are in them. Or an interactive game experience could be developed that leverages recognized sounds in the environment as a trigger for unlocking special modes where characters mimic what they're hearing. We’ve provided the “Classifying live audio input with a built-in sound classifier” project to help you get started. From here, we invite you to come up with an app of your own that uses the microphone or another audio source to listen to and identify sounds. What will you make? Show off the creative ways you can apply this built-in capability. WWDC21 Discover built-in sound classification in SoundAnalysis Explore how you can use the Sound Analysis framework in your app to detect and classify discrete sounds from any audio source — including live sounds from a microphone or from a video or audio file — and identify precisely in a moment where that sound occurs. Learn how the built-in sound... Classifying Live Audio Input with a Built-in Sound Classifier Need support, or want help from the community as you explore Sound Classification? You can share your progress in the Developer Forums. Visit the Apple Developer Forums Resources Sound Analysis Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Challenge: Create your first 3D model with Object Capture

    Apple Developer News · Sun, 06 Jun 2021 06:00:21 PDT

    Object capture provides a quick and easy way to create lifelike 3D models of real-world objects with only a few images. You can capture just about any object to incorporate directly into your apps and games. For this challenge, we’re inviting you to use the new Object Capture Swift API and build your very own 3D model from scratch. What object you scan is entirely up to you, though we’ve supplied a few themes to get you started: Toys and figurines Items you only find in nature, like pine cones or leaves Items you might only find in a kitchen Begin the challenge To help you get started, download our sample iOS app to capture the images of your object. Taking Pictures for 3D Object Capture Some tips: You’ll get the best experience when you capture your object on a turntable with your iPhone mounted to a tripod If you don’t have a turntable, find a table in your space for your object, then slowly move around it to take photos while maintaining overlap between adjacent images No matter how you capture your object, make sure you’re in a well-lit space Discover more best practices for capturing images of your object in “Create 3D models with Object Capture” from WWDC21. WWDC21 Create 3D models with Object Capture Object Capture provides a quick and easy way to create lifelike 3D models of real-world objects using just a few images. Learn how you can get started and bring your assets to life with Photogrammetry for macOS. And discover best practices with object selection and image capture to help you achieve... Once you’ve taken photographs of the item, collect them into a folder on your Mac. Then open the HelloPhotogrammetry macOS app from "Creating a Photogrammetry Command-Line App", add your folder of images, and the app will transform them into a fully-functioning 3D model. Creating a Photogrammetry Command-Line App After your 3D model is complete, export your creation to a .usdz file and preview it with AR Quick Look. Want to share what you’ve made with the community? Post a link to your model in the Developer Forums. Resources Visit the Apple Developer Forums Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Get the most out of WWDC21

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 04 Jun 2021 05:00:56 PDT

    There’s so much to explore and learn during WWDC21: It’s nice to have a place to start. We’ve put together a few resources we know will be useful for this week. Rewatch the Keynote and Platforms State of the Union Monday’s Keynote brought an in-depth look at the future of Apple platforms. And don’t miss the Platforms State of the Union and dive deep into the latest tools, technologies, and advances. WWDC21 Keynote WWDC21 Keynote (ASL) WWDC21 Platforms State of the Union WWDC21 Platforms State of the Union (ASL) Meet pavilions Visit the WWDC tab in the Developer app to take a peek at what’s in store for you this week. Browse a full list of all sessions, labs, and special activities, or — new for 2021 — check out pavilions. Within a pavilion, you can browse a customized schedule for sessions and labs within that area, discover daily featured content, participate in coding challenges, explore activities and session collections, and find related documentation. There are more than 200 sessions, technology and design labs, special activities, and so much more arriving throughout the week. Bookmark sessions you’re interested in and sign up for labs directly within the app. Don’t want to miss a thing? Make sure you’ve signed up for WWDC notifications, available on both iOS and Mac. Connect in the labs, lounges, and forums with Apple engineers and designers Members of the Apple Developer Program, Apple Developer Enterprise Program, or 2021 Swift Student Challenge winners can request a lab appointment with an Apple specialist, engineer, or designer for one-on-one guidance and conversation. You can explore the entire labs schedule on the WWDC tab or within a specific pavilion, request appointments directly within the app, and manage your schedule. You can also connect with Apple engineers and designers around select topics in the Digital Lounges. Hosted by the Developer Tools, SwiftUI, Accessibility, and Machine Learning teams, the lounges invite you to participate in text-based discussions, ask questions about the latest technologies, get help with coding challenges, meet presenters, and more. Space is limited. Sign-ups are open now and available to members of the Apple Developer Program, Apple Developer Enterprise Program, or 2021 Swift Student Challenge winners. And you can always ask questions about the latest technologies on the Apple Developer Forums. Explore developer labs at WWDC21 Discover the Apple Developer forums Sign up for Digital Lounges Read developer documentation Check out the latest sample code projects, API reference and article updates, and more on the Developer Documentation website. Explore the latest updates to Apple frameworks on the Technologies page, check out the Human Interface Guidelines, and get a primer on interface resources that integrate beautifully with Apple platforms. Find the right documentation Apple Developer Documentation Explore WWDC20 sample code Download developer betas Itching to explore the latest developer betas for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, Xcode, and more? Anyone with an active Apple Developer account can visit developer.apple.com after the Keynote for download links and more. Download the latest developer beta software Learn more about Feedback Assistant How to file great bug reports Enhance bug reports with debug profiles and logging How to test your app on beta software Explore what’s new While there are many great sessions that cover all the latest technologies and frameworks in detail during WWDC week, for a broader view of our platforms and technologies — as well as release notes for each platform — be sure to check out developer.apple.com.

  • Challenge: Animated artistry in SwiftUI

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 02 Jun 2021 11:31:36 PDT

    Put trigonometry to good use and show us your artistic side by creating a stunning graphical animation in SwiftUI. Begin the challenge The SwiftUI canvas is a powerful new way to represent and animate graphics, while drawingGroup remains a great way to flatten and render views offscreen to create beautiful graphics. Explore both canvas and drawingGroup and create an awesome graphical animation that you can animate with animations or the new TimelineView. Add your creation to a view in your existing app project, or start an entirely new project in Xcode. WWDC21 Add rich graphics to your SwiftUI app Learn how you can bring your graphics to life with SwiftUI. We’ll begin by working with safe areas, including the keyboard safe area, and learn how to design beautiful, edge-to-edge graphics that won’t underlap the on-screen keyboard. We’ll also explore the materials and vibrancy you can use... Don’t forget to consider the accessibility and design implications of your concept. Have you made sure your animation is fully accessible to everyone? Do your awesome graphics follow the Human Interface Guidelines with regard to safe areas and contrast ratios? We’re excited to see what you can make in just a day using platform best practices! Want to share your work-in-progress or collaborate with other developers? You can show off your finished animation in the Developer Forums. Visit the Apple Developer Forums Resources Read the WWDC21 Challenges Terms and Conditions

  • Get ready for WWDC21

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 01 Jun 2021 09:00:56 PDT

    Digital Lounge sign-ups are now open. Join Apple engineers and designers from Developer Tools, SwiftUI, Accessibility, and Machine Learning and participate in text-based discussions, ask questions about the latest technologies, get help with coding challenges, meet presenters, and more. Space is limited and available for members of the Apple Developer Program and Apple Developer Enterprise Program, as well as Swift Student Challenge winners. In addition to WWDC, a variety of other exciting developer events will take place throughout the week. Find even more opportunities for learning, networking, and fun. Learn more about Digital Lounges View developer community events

  • 2021 Apple Design Award finalists announced

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 01 Jun 2021 09:00:47 PDT

    The Apple Design Awards honor excellence in innovation, ingenuity, and technical achievement in app and game design. We’re thrilled to announce this year’s finalists — an impressive collection of apps and games produced by some of the most talented developers in the world. Finalists were chosen across six categories and winners will be announced on June 10. View the finalists

  • New Apple Developer Forums features now available

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 26 May 2021 20:30:23 PDT

    The Apple Developer Forums offer a trusted space to find answers, ask questions, and share thoughts on a variety of code-level topics with fellow developers and Apple engineers. New features now make it even easier to keep track of activity, search for content, post replies, and more. Post comments on questions or answers to provide context or ask for clarification. Search for content across multiple tags. Add and manage favorite tags. Upload images to your question or answer to provide supporting visual details. See tag descriptions when choosing tags for your question so you can quickly select the most appropriate ones. Subscribe to RSS feeds for tags you’re interested in. See your authored and watched content, favorite tags, and trending tags on the newly designed home page. Learn more about the forums Visit the forums

  • And away we code.

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 24 May 2021 10:45:53 PDT

    Join us on June 7 at 10 a.m. PDT as WWDC21 takes off with an all‑online experience and millions of the world’s most talented developers. Mark your calendar for the Keynote and State of the Union. Learn about sessions, one-on-one labs, activities, and much more. Find out more about WWDC21

  • Updates to age rating settings in App Store Connect

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 20 May 2021 11:17:11 PDT

    To help you describe your app’s content more precisely, the age rating settings in App Store Connect have been refined. The Gambling and Contests setting is now split into two settings, allowing you to indicate these content types separately. They’re also indicated separately on the App Store. If your answer to the Gambling and Contests setting was Yes, the update automatically reflects that your app includes instances of Gambling. Contests will be marked as Frequent/Intense. If your answer was No, the update automatically reflects that your app does not include instances of Gambling or Contests. In addition, you can access age rating settings directly from the App Information section in App Store Connect. Apps that offer Universal Purchase display the same age rating on the App Store across all platforms. You can make changes to your age rating settings when submitting a new version of your app and your app’s availability in certain regions will be updated based on local laws. Learn more about age rating settings

  • App Store stopped more than $1.5 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions in 2020

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 11 May 2021 11:55:59 PDT

    Apple helps keep the App Store a safe and trusted place for users to discover apps by detecting and taking action against fraudulent developers and users. Threats have been present since the first day the App Store launched on iPhone, and they’ve increased in both scale and sophistication in the years since. Apple has likewise scaled its efforts to meet those threats, taking relentless steps forward to combat these risks to users and developers alike. It takes significant resources behind the scenes to ensure these bad actors can’t exploit users’ most sensitive information, from location to payment details. While it’s impossible to catch every act of fraud or ill intent before it happens, thanks to Apple’s industry-leading antifraud efforts, security experts agree the App Store is the safest place to find and download apps.* In 2020 alone, Apple’s combination of sophisticated technology and human expertise protected customers from more than $1.5 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions, preventing the attempted theft of their money, information, and time — and kept nearly a million risky and vulnerable new apps out of their hands. App Review The App Review team is an essential line of defense, carefully reviewing every app and every update to ensure they adhere to the App Store’s strong guidelines on privacy, security, and spam. The guidelines have changed over time to respond to new threats and challenges, with the goal of protecting users and providing them with the very best experience on the App Store. Apple’s goal is always to get new apps onto the store. In 2020, the team assisted more than 180,000 new developers in launching apps. Sometimes this takes a few tries. An app might be unfinished or not functioning properly when it’s submitted for approval, or it might not yet have a sufficient mechanism for moderating user-generated content. In 2020, nearly 1 million problematic new apps, and an additional nearly 1 million app updates, were rejected or removed for a range of reasons like those. A smaller but significant set of these rejections was for egregious violations that could harm users or deeply diminish their experience. In 2020 alone, the App Review team rejected more than 48,000 apps for containing hidden or undocumented features, and more than 150,000 apps were rejected because they were found to be spam, copycats, or misleading to users in ways such as manipulating them into making a purchase. Some developers perform a bait and switch: fundamentally changing how the app works after review to evade guidelines and commit forbidden and even criminal actions. When such apps are discovered, they’re rejected or removed immediately from the store, and developers are notified of a 14-day appeals process before their accounts are permanently terminated. In 2020, about 95,000 apps were removed from the App Store for fraudulent violations, predominantly for these kind of bait-and-switch maneuvers. In just the last few months, for example, Apple has rejected or removed apps that switched functionality after initial review to become real-money gambling apps, predatory loan issuers, and pornography hubs; used in-game signals to facilitate drug purchasing; and rewarded users for broadcasting illicit and pornographic content via video chat. Another common reason apps are rejected is they simply ask for more user data than they need, or mishandle the data they do collect. In 2020, the App Review team rejected over 215,000 apps for those sorts of privacy violations. Apple believes privacy is a fundamental right, and this commitment is a major reason why users choose the App Store. Even with these stringent review safeguards in place, with 1.8 million apps on the App Store, problems still surface. Users can report problematic apps by choosing the Report a Problem feature on the App Store or calling Apple Support, and developers can use either of those methods or additional channels like Feedback Assistant and Apple Developer Support. Fraudulent Ratings and Reviews App Store ratings and reviews help many users make decisions about which apps to download, and developers rely on them to incorporate new features that respond to user feedback. Apple relies on a sophisticated system that combines machine learning, artificial intelligence, and human review by expert teams to moderate these ratings and reviews to help ensure accuracy and maintain trust. Since 2020, Apple has processed over 1 billion ratings and over 100 million reviews, and over 250 million ratings and reviews were removed for not meeting moderation standards. Apple also recently deployed new tools to verify rating and review account authenticity, to analyze written reviews for signs of fraud, and to ensure that content from deactivated accounts is removed. Account Fraud Unfortunately, sometimes developer accounts are created entirely for fraudulent purposes. If a developer violation is egregious or repeated, the offender is expelled from the Apple Developer Program and their account terminated. Apple terminated 470,000 developer accounts in 2020 and rejected an additional 205,000 developer enrollments over fraud concerns, preventing them from ever submitting an app to the store. Despite fraudsters’ sophisticated techniques to obscure their actions, Apple’s aggressive monitoring means these accounts are terminated, on average, less than a month after they are created. Apple’s work to ensure the safety of users who download apps extends even beyond the App Store. Over the last 12 months, Apple found and blocked nearly 110,000 illegitimate apps on pirate storefronts. These storefronts distribute malicious software often designed to resemble popular apps — or that modify popular apps without their developers’ authorization — while circumventing the App Store’s security protections. And in just the last month, Apple blocked more than 3.2 million instances of apps distributed illicitly through the Apple Developer Enterprise Program. The program is designed to allow companies and other large organizations to develop and privately distribute internal-use apps to their employees that aren’t available to the general public. Fraudsters attempt to distribute apps via this method to circumvent the rigorous App Review process, or to implicate a legitimate enterprise by manipulating an insider to leak credentials needed to ship illicit content. In addition to fraudulent developer accounts, Apple works to identify and deactivate fraudulent user accounts. In 2020 alone, Apple deactivated 244 million customer accounts due to fraudulent and abusive activity. In addition, 424 million attempted account creations were rejected because they displayed patterns consistent with fraudulent and abusive activity. Payment and Credit Card Fraud Financial information and transactions are some of the most sensitive data that users share online. Apple has invested significant resources in building more secure payment technologies like Apple Pay and StoreKit, which are used by more than 900,000 apps to sell goods and services on the App Store. For example, with Apple Pay, credit card numbers are never shared with merchants — eliminating a risk factor in the payment transaction process. With online data breaches frustratingly common, these protections are an essential part of keeping users safe. But users may not realize that when their credit card information is breached or stolen from another source, fraudsters may turn to online marketplaces like the App Store to attempt to purchase digital goods and services that can be laundered or used for illicit purposes. Apple focuses relentlessly on this kind of fraud as well. In 2020 alone, the fusion of sophisticated technology and human review prevented more than 3 million stolen cards from being used to purchase stolen goods and services and banned nearly 1 million accounts from transacting again. In total, Apple protected users from more than $1.5 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions in 2020. From App Review, to fraudulent account detection, to prevention of financial crimes, Apple works around the clock and behind the scenes to keep the App Store a safe and trusted place for users and developers alike. * nokia.com/networks/portfolio/cyber-security/threat-intelligence-report-2020; media.defense.gov

  • Support directional remotes in your tvOS app

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 10 May 2021 05:00:49 PDT

    In addition to the Siri Remote, tvOS provides support for a variety of hardware and software remotes with touch or button interfaces. When your app uses standard frameworks — like UIKit and AVKit — tvOS will automatically handle remote interactions to provide a consistent and familiar experience. If you have an app that includes custom interface elements or media players, you can still easily support navigation and content-based features for hardware and software remotes with both touch and button interfaces. Here’s how. Explore app navigation On Apple TV, people use a remote or game controller to navigate through interface elements like content posters, apps, or buttons, highlighting each item as they come to it. The highlighted item is said to be focused or in focus. The focus engine in UIKit controls focus and movement on tvOS, listens for incoming focus-movement events triggered from a remote or game controller, and notifies your app so you can provide the appropriate experience. All standard gestures in tvOS work with directional remotes by default, and you can also provide support in your app for custom gestures with classes like UITapGestureRecognizer. About focus interactions for Apple TV Adapt custom gestures for directional remotes If you support custom gestures that control special actions within your app’s interface, you can add UITapGestureRecognizer to map to an explicit directional event. // Gesture to handle directional pad down let customGesture = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(specialAction)) customGesture.allowedPressTypes = [.downArrow] view.addGestureRecognizer(customGesture) UITapGestureRecognizer Learn more about detecting gestures and button presses Explore the App Programming Guide for tvOS Support remotes with dedicated channel and guide buttons Some Apple TV-compatible remotes offer dedicated guide buttons and up and down arrows to control channel changes and electronic programming guide paging functionality. If your app includes channels or a programming guide, you can support these interactions on remotes with dedicated buttons through the TV Services framework. Providing Channel Navigation Support playback interactions in a custom video player If your app includes video content, you can use AVPlayerViewController to provide the best experience across all remote types. If you’ve created a custom video player, however, you can use UITapGestureRecognizer map specific remote buttons to playback interactions as well as MPRemoteCommandCenter to handle media player events. MPRemoteCommandCenter Becoming a Now Playable App Remote Command Center Events Play and pause When someone plays content in your app, pressing select, play, pause or play/pause should update the playback state and display the player transport bar. You’ll need to use UITapGestureRecognizer and MPRemoteCommandCenter to handle these interactions in your custom player. // Gesture to handle play pause state let playPauseGesture = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(togglePlaybackState) playPauseGesture.allowedPressTypes = [.playPause, .select] view.addGestureRecognizer(playPauseGesture) // MPRemoteCommands to handle play pause state let remoteCommandCenter = MPRemoteCommandCenter.shared() remoteCommandCenter.playCommand.addTarget(self, action: #selector(playHandler)) remoteCommandCenter.pauseCommand.addTarget(self, action: #selector(pauseHandler)) Skip forward and skip backward When using a directional remote, people can skip through video in the appropriate direction by pressing left or right on the directional pad. Additionally, certain remotes have dedicated skip forward and skip backward buttons that can map to this functionality. To ensure someone can navigate forward and backward through your content, use UITapGestureRecognizer and MPRemoteCommandCenter to create the correct gestures. // Gesture to handle directional pad left let dPadLeftGesture = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(dPadLeftHandler)) dPadLeftGesture.allowedPressTypes = [NSNumber(value: UIPress.PressType.leftArrow.rawValue)] view.addGestureRecognizer(dPadLeftGesture) // Gesture to handle directional pad right let dPadRightGesture = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(dPadRightHandler)) dPadRightGesture.allowedPressTypes = [NSNumber(value: UIPress.PressType.rightArrow.rawValue)] view.addGestureRecognizer(dPadRightGesture) // MPRemoteCommands to handle skip forward and skip backward let remoteCommandCenter = MPRemoteCommandCenter.shared() remoteCommandCenter.skipForwardCommand.addTarget(self, action: #selector(skipForwardHandler)) remoteCommandCenter.skipBackwardCommand.addTarget(self, action: #selector(skipBackwardHandler)) Fast forward and rewind People can fast forward and rewind through content in different ways depending on the remote they use. Some remotes offer dedicated fast forward and rewind buttons, while others achieve this with a long press on the left or right directional pad buttons. Note: On tvOS, we recommend using the following UI labels to pair with the corresponding supported player rates. UI Labels to tvOS Playback Rates 1x = 8.0 2x = 24.0 3x = 48.0 4x = 96.0 Dedicated fast forward and rewind buttons For remotes with dedicated fast forward and rewind buttons, a short press will initiate a continuous seek forward or backward. Each subsequent press of that button will increase the seek rate. Once someone passes the last seek rate, the player returns to its normal playback rate. If the opposite button is pressed while seeking, it decreases the seek rate; each subsequent press will do the same until the player returns to its normal playback rate. You can support these controls in your app with changePlaybackRateCommand in MPRemoteCommandCenter. You’ll also want to make sure to update your player rate with the playbackRate property of the MPChangePlaybackRateCommandEvent. If someone holds a dedicated fast forward or rewind button, MPRemoteCommandCenter will fire a seekForwardCommand or seekBackwardCommand. Your registered target will receive MPSeekCommandEventType.beginSeeking, and your app should set the player to the desired seek rate. Once someone releases the button, your app receives a new command event with the case MPSeekCommandEventType.endSeeking, telling it to return the player rate to normal. Directional pad fast forward and rewind If a person long presses the left or right directional pad buttons, your app should seek forward or backward respectively and update the seek rate. While seeking, a person can use a short press on the left or right directional pad buttons to update the seek rate as described in the previous section. Adopt fast forward and rewind in your custom video player To incorporate these gestures in your app for all remotes, you’ll want to use MPRemoteCommandCenter, UITapGestureRecognizer and UILongPressGestureRecognizer. // MPRemoteCommands to handle dedicated fast forward and rewind buttons let remoteCommandCenter = MPRemoteCommandCenter.shared() // MPRemoteCommands to handle dedicated fast forward and rewind (short presses) remoteCommandCenter.changePlaybackRateCommand.addTarget { [unowned self] event in guard let event = event as? MPChangePlaybackRateCommandEvent else { return .commandFailed } self.assetPlayer.player.rate = event.playbackRate return .success } // MPRemoteCommands to handle dedicated fast forward button (long press) remoteCommandCenter.seekForwardCommand.addTarget { [unowned self] event in guard let event = event as? MPSeekCommandEvent else { return .commandFailed } if event.type == .beginSeeking { self.assetPlayer.player.rate = 24.0 } if event.type == .endSeeking { self.assetPlayer.player.rate = 1.0 } return .success } // MPRemoteCommands to handle dedicated rewind button (long press) remoteCommandCenter.seekBackwardCommand.addTarget { [unowned self] event in guard let event = event as? MPSeekCommandEvent else { return .commandFailed } if event.type == .beginSeeking { self.assetPlayer.player.rate = -24.0 } if event.type == .endSeeking { self.assetPlayer.player.rate = 1.0 } return .success } // Gestures to handle fast forward and rewind from directional pad // Gesture to handle dpad right (long press) let dPadRightLong = UILongPressGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(dPadRightLongHandler)) dPadRightLong.allowedPressTypes = [NSNumber(value: UIPress.PressType.rightArrow.rawValue)] view.addGestureRecognizer(dPadRightLong) // Gesture to handle dpad left (long press) let dPadLeftLong = UILongPressGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(dPadLeftLongHandler)) dPadLeftLong.allowedPressTypes = [NSNumber(value: UIPress.PressType.leftArrow.rawValue)] view.addGestureRecognizer(dPadLeftLong) // Gesture to handle dpad right (short press) let dPadRightGesture = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(dPadRightHandler)) dPadRightGesture.allowedPressTypes = [NSNumber(value: UIPress.PressType.rightArrow.rawValue)] view.addGestureRecognizer(dPadRightGesture) // Gesture to handle dpad left (short press) let dPadLeftGesture = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: #selector(dPadLeftHandler)) dPadLeftGesture.allowedPressTypes = [NSNumber(value: UIPress.PressType.leftArrow.rawValue)] view.addGestureRecognizer(dPadLeftGesture) Support additional interactions in a custom player People expect up or down swipes or presses to provide a consistent experience during video playback, like showing the player controls and transport bar on a press or swipe up, or showing the information panel on a swipe or press down. Transport Bar People should be able to see how much time remains on a piece of content. Swiping up or pressing up on a directional pad should show the player’s transport bar without stopping or pausing the player. // Gesture to handle directional pad up let upGesture = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: .upGestureRecognizer) upGesture.allowedPressTypes = [.upArrow] view.addGestureRecognizer(upGesture) Information Panel People should be able to access subtitle and audio selections along with other options while viewing content. Swiping down or pressing down on a directional pad should show these options without stopping or pausing the player. // Gesture to handle directional pad down let downGesture = UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action: .downGestureRecognizer) downGesture.allowedPressTypes = [.downArrow] view.addGestureRecognizer(downGesture) Putting Your Users In Control No matter which interaction method someone chooses to use with Apple TV, you can ensure they remain in control by offering a great experience in your app for all remotes. It’s easy when you use system frameworks like AVFoundation and AVKit and support custom gestures and media interactions with UITapGestureRecognizer and MPRemoteCommandCenter. And when you do, it lets people enjoy your content without worrying how to interact with your app.

  • Apple Search Ads introduces a new way to promote apps

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 04 May 2021 09:17:47 PDT

    Apple Search Ads has always made it easy to promote your apps at the top of relevant search results on the App Store. Now you can reach users even before they search with an ad placement on the Search tab. It’s a simple and effective way to help users discover your apps. Try Apple Search Ads for free with a 100 USD credit. Learn more about Apple Search Ads

  • Search suggestions now on the App Store

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 29 Apr 2021 16:12:37 PDT

    The App Store provides a safe and trusted place for users around the world to discover and download your apps. And now with search suggestions, it provides another great discovery method. When users search on the App Store, they see suggested search terms related to what they’re looking for. Tapping a suggestion adjusts their search, so they’ll easily find even more apps that might fit their needs. App Store search is one of the main ways that users discover apps, and developers are already seeing more downloads from those who use these suggestions. Search suggestions are currently available in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Additional regions will be made available over time. Learn best practices for App Store search optimization

  • What’s new in advertising attribution technologies

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 27 Apr 2021 16:14:26 PDT

    Private Click Measurement is now available in iOS 14.5 and iPadOS 14.5, allowing advertising networks to measure the effectiveness of advertisement clicks within apps and websites that navigate to a website. This information can be used to understand which advertisements drive conversions (such as purchases or signups) — while maintaining user privacy. Starting with the beta release of iOS 14.6 and iPadOS 14.6, advertising networks that use SKAdNetwork 3.0 are eligible to receive attribution postbacks if their advertisement does not win the attribution. This allows up to five advertising networks to see when an advertisement they ran was a runner-up to an app installation. Learn more about SKAdNetwork

  • Online group event in-app purchase requirement update

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 22 Apr 2021 16:41:53 PDT

    Last year, to support apps that adapted services from in-person to digital due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we temporarily deferred the requirement to offer paid online group event services (one-to-few and one-to-many realtime services) through in-app purchase in accordance with App Store Review Guideline 3.1.1. As the world continues to recover from the pandemic, we’d like to support the communities that are still providing digital services in place of in-person group events by extending the deadline further to December 31, 2021. As a reminder, guideline 3.1.3(d) allows apps offering realtime person-to-person services between two individuals (for example, tutoring students, medical consultations, real estate tours, or fitness training) to use purchase methods other than in-app purchase.

  • App Store submission update

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 20 Apr 2021 18:31:42 PDT

    Make sure your apps make the most of iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and watchOS 7. Build your apps with the Xcode 12.5 Release Candidate, update your product pages, and submit them for review. iPhone and iPad apps. Starting April 26, 2021, all iPhone and iPad apps submitted to the App Store must be built with Xcode 12 and the iOS 14 SDK or later. The iOS SDK provides access to exciting new features like App Clips, Home screen widgets, ARKit, RealityKit, and much more. Learn more Apple Watch apps. Starting April 26, 2021, all watchOS apps submitted to the App Store must be built with Xcode 12 and the watchOS 7 SDK or later. The watchOS 7 SDK lets you create multiple complications for each complication family using new ClockKit APIs, SwiftUI Complications, and Xcode Previews — so users can enjoy your app right on their watch face. Learn more

  • Upcoming AppTrackingTransparency requirements

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 20 Apr 2021 18:23:32 PDT

    With the upcoming public release of iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5, and tvOS 14.5, all apps must use the AppTrackingTransparency framework to request the user’s permission to track them or to access their device's advertising identifier. Unless you receive permission from the user to enable tracking, the device's advertising identifier value will be all zeros and you may not track them. When submitting your app for review, any other form of tracking — for example, by name or email address — must be declared in the product page’s App Store Privacy Information section and be performed only if permission is granted through AppTrackingTransparency. You'll also need to include a purpose string in the system prompt to explain why you'd like to track the user, per App Store Review Guideline 5.1.2(i). These requirements apply to all apps starting April 26, 2021. As a reminder, collecting device and usage data with the intent of deriving a unique representation of a user, or fingerprinting, continues to be a violation of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement. Learn more about user privacy and data use

  • Program enrollment available in more regions in the Apple Developer app

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 08 Apr 2021 17:14:29 PDT

    It’s now simpler than ever for developers around the world to enroll in the Apple Developer Program. As of today, the Apple Developer app also supports enrollment in Canada, France, India, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, and Spain. Developers can start and finish their membership purchase with local payment methods on iPhone or iPad. And since membership is provided as an auto-renewable subscription, keeping it active is easy. View on the App Store

  • Get ready for AppTrackingTransparency

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 05 Apr 2021 14:38:05 PDT

    Make sure your apps are ready for iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5, and tvOS 14.5. With the upcoming public release, all apps must use the AppTrackingTransparency framework to request the user's permission to track them or to access their device's advertising identifier. Unless you receive permission from the user to enable tracking, the device's advertising identifier value will be all zeros and you may not track them. When submitting your app for review, any other form of tracking — for example, by name or email address — must be declared in the product page's App Store Privacy Information section and be performed only if permission is granted through AppTrackingTransparency. You'll also need to include a purpose string in the system prompt to explain why you'd like to track the user, per App Store Review Guideline 5.1.2(i). These requirements apply to all apps starting with the public release of iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5, and tvOS 14.5. As a reminder, collecting device and usage data with the intent of deriving a unique representation of a user, or fingerprinting, continues to be a violation of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement. Learn more about user privacy and data use

  • Welcome to the Apple Developer app

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 30 Mar 2021 06:00:56 PDT

    Say hello to the latest version of the Apple Developer app. Whether you’re a computer science student in China or a veteran UI designer in Germany, the Developer app can help you make truly great apps for Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. Learn about new Apple technologies you can adopt in your app, best practices for implementation, and tips for tuning and optimization. Design beautiful apps that scale across all devices. Discover how developers on the App Store have approached and integrated new distribution models. And find inspiration in stories from the Apple developer community. Find what you seek We’ve made improvements to the look and feel of the Developer app across iPhone, iPad, and Mac to help you enjoy articles, videos, news and announcements, and past WWDC content. You can browse content more easily on iPad with a new sidebar (iPadOS 14 or later), enjoy fullscreen video content on larger Mac displays, and discover content to watch and read using the new Search area. Instant expertise The Discover section of the app is regularly updated with timely, relevant, and actionable guidance for designing, developing, and marketing your apps, and we’ve made it even easier to explore more content at a glance whether you’re using the app on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Catch up on the latest developer news and announcements and check out updates to our developer documentation. Get recommendations for implementing features into your app and quick tips to help you better take advantage of our developer tools. Discover the stories of the Apple developer community. And check out the latest videos about Apple technologies to help you build even more powerful and innovative apps. Full stream ahead The Developer app is the heart of this year’s exciting all-online WWDC experience. Join millions of developers from around the world starting June 7 for an in-depth look at the future of Apple platforms, including announcements from the Keynote and State of the Union stages, online sessions, 1:1 labs offering technical guidance, and new ways for developers to interact with Apple engineers and designers.

  • Announcing WWDC21

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 30 Mar 2021 04:00:56 PDT

    The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference is coming to a screen near you, June 7 to 11. Join the worldwide developer community for an all-online program with exciting announcements, sessions, and labs at no cost. You’ll get a first look at the latest Apple platforms, tools, and technologies — so you can create your most innovative apps and games yet. Stay tuned for additional details. Now through April 18, we invite students who love to code to submit their Swift playground to this year’s Swift Student Challenge. Winners will receive exclusive WWDC21 outerwear and a customized pin set. Learn about the Challenge

  • Updates to App Store server notifications

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 10 Mar 2021 08:32:50 PST

    If you support Family Sharing, you can now receive new App Store server notifications for real-time updates on family member statuses. REVOKE lets you know when to revoke a family member’s access to an auto-renewable subscription or non-consumable in-app purchase. The App Store sends this notification to your server when a purchaser disables Family Sharing for an in-app purchase, the purchaser or family member leaves the family group, or the purchaser asks for and receives a refund. DID_FAIL_TO_RENEW and DID_RECOVER are now sent for each family member when a shared subscription fails to renew due to a billing issue and when it is successfully recovered. As a reminder, the following deprecated App Store server notification and top-level objects are no longer supported in production as of today. Update your code now to continue providing a seamless user experience. RENEWAL latest_receipt latest_receipt_info latest_expired_receipt latest_expired_receipt_info Learn about App Store server notifications Learn about supporting Family Sharing

  • Reminder: APNs provider API requirement starts March 31

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 04 Mar 2021 14:23:39 PST

    The HTTP/2-based Apple Push Notification service (APNs) provider API lets you take advantage of great features, such as authentication with a JSON Web Token, improved error messaging, and per-notification feedback. If you still send push notifications with the legacy binary protocol, make sure to upgrade to the APNs provider API as soon as possible. APNs will no longer support the legacy binary protocol after March 31, 2021. Learn about the APNs provider API

  • Documentation Spotlight: Design great app icons for macOS Big Sur

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 03 Mar 2021 05:00:57 PST

    A unique, memorable icon can help people recognize your Mac app at a glance on the desktop, in Finder, and in the Dock. Polished, expressive icons can also hint at an app’s personality and even its overall level of quality. Icons in macOS Big Sur share a common set of visual attributes, including the rounded-rectangle shape, front-facing perspective, level position, and uniform drop shadow. Discover how you can update your app icon to look great on macOS Big Sur with these guidelines and templates from the Apple Design Resources. Learn more about designing app icons for macOS Explore Apple Design Resources for macOS

  • IMDF now recognized as Global Community Standard

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 23 Feb 2021 11:21:47 PST

    Indoor Mapping Data Format (IMDF) lets you present your users with fully-customized indoor maps of venues around the world, such as stadiums, airports, and campuses — all under the security and privacy controls of the property owner. Developed by Apple, IMDF makes it easy for organizations to enable Apple’s indoor positioning service on iPhone and iPad inside facilities without installing additional infrastructure, like beacons. It offers a mobile-friendly, compact, human-readable, and highly extensible data model for any indoor space, providing a basis for orientation, navigation, and discovery. And now, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) membership has added IMDF 1.0.0 to the OGC Standards Baseline as a Community Standard. Learn more about IMDF Learn about displaying indoor maps

  • Additional guidance available for App Store privacy labels

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 23 Feb 2021 09:11:44 PST

    Additional details have been published on completing your App Store privacy labels, including more information about data types, such as email or text messages, and gameplay content. You’ll also find more information about data collected in web views and data that may be entered by users within documents or other file types. Learn more

  • App Analytics now includes App Clip data

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 22 Feb 2021 18:22:45 PST

    You can now view important details about your App Clips, such as the number of installations, sessions, and crashes. You can also see how users found your App Clips — for example, through an App Clip Code, Maps, or an external referral. App Clip data is available only from users who have agreed to share their diagnostics and usage information with app developers. Learn more

  • Apple Entrepreneur Camp applications open for female founders and developers

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 22 Feb 2021 16:24:59 PST

    Apple Entrepreneur Camp supports underrepresented founders and developers as they build the next generation of cutting-edge apps and helps form a global network that encourages the pipeline and longevity of these entrepreneurs in technology. Applications are open now for the next cohort for female founders and developers, which runs online from July 20 to 29, 2021. Attendees receive code-level guidance, mentorship, and inspiration with unprecedented access to Apple engineers and leaders. Applications close on March 26, 2021. Learn more about Entrepreneur Camp Learn about some of our inspiring alumni

  • Submitting health pass apps

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 16 Feb 2021 10:31:06 PST

    With the recent release of COVID-19 vaccines, we’ve seen an increase in apps that generate health passes used to enter buildings and access in-person services based on testing and vaccination records. To ensure these apps responsibly handle sensitive data and provide reliable functionality, they must be submitted by developers working with entities recognized by public health authorities, such as test kit manufacturers, laboratories, or healthcare providers. As with other apps related to COVID-19, we also accept apps submitted directly by government, medical, and other credentialed institutions. Learn more about submitting COVID-19 related apps

  • New features available on the Apple Developer Forums

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 12 Feb 2021 18:01:37 PST

    The Apple Developer Forums are a great place to connect with fellow developers and Apple engineers as you give and receive help on development topics. And now, it’s easier to find and keep track of content you’re interested in. Take advantage of enhanced search and a new feature that monitors threads for you and sends you an email each time there’s a reply. Learn more about the forums Visit the forums

  • Support HDR video playback, editing, and export in your app

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 12 Feb 2021 13:24:10 PST

    You can help people create more vivid and true-to-life video when you support high dynamic range (HDR) in your app. And when you support HDR with Dolby Vision, people with iPhone 12 or iPhone 12 Pro can go even further and shoot, edit, and play cinema-grade videos right from their device. Dolby Vision tuning is provided dynamically to each frame, preserving the intended look of the original shots. Here’s how you can provide the best HDR video playback, editing, and export experience. Get started with HDR video Your app needs to support iOS 14.1 or later to take advantage of HDR video. To begin, we recommend reviewing a few WWDC sessions which provide a good overview of the process. WWDC20 Export HDR media in your app with AVFoundation Discover how to author and export high dynamic range (HDR) content in your app using AVFoundation. Learn about high dynamic range and how you can take advantage of it in your app. We’ll show you how to implement feature sets that allow people to export HDR content, go over supported HDR formats,... WWDC20 Edit and play back HDR video with AVFoundation Find out how you can support HDR editing and playback in your macOS app, and how you can determine if a specific hardware configuration is eligible for HDR playback. We'll show you how to use AVMutableVideoComposition with the built-in compositor and easily edit HDR content, explain how you can use... Note: iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro record HDR video in Dolby Vision Profile 8.4, Cross-compatibility ID 4 (HLG) format, using an HEVC (10-bit) codec. This format is designed to be backwards compatible with HLG, allowing existing HEVC decoders to decode as HLG. Video is recorded by the Camera app as a QuickTime File Format (QTFF) movie (.mov extension). Signaling for Dolby Vision in a QTFF movie is similar to signaling in Dolby Vision Streams within the ISO base media file format. Learn more about Dolby Vision Profiles Learn more about Dolby Vision Levels Learn more about Dolby Vision Streams Support HDR video playback in your app Both iOS and macOS support HDR video playback on all eligible devices. Use eligibleForHDRPlayback on AVPlayer to check for HDR playback support on the current device. In general, the classes AVPlayer, AVPlayerlayer, or AVSampleBufferDisplayLayer can be used to play Dolby Vision video. If your app uses AVPlayer, you don’t need to add anything additional to your code: The AVFoundation framework automatically sets up an HDR playback pipeline to handle Dolby Vision Profile 8.4 if it detects an asset in Dolby Vision and the device supports HDR playback. If your app usesAVSampleBufferDisplayLayer to render video, make sure any sample buffers passed to the sample buffer display layer are in formats suitable for HDR and carry Dolby Vision Profile 8.4 per-frame metadata. These sample buffers need to have 10-bit or higher bit-depth. A commonly used 10-bit format is 4:2:0 Y’CbCr video range, represented by kCVPixelFormatType_420YpCbCr10BiPlanarVideoRange. The associated OSType for this pixel format is ’x420’. If your sample buffers are decoded using VTDecompressionSession, you can carry the Dolby Vision Profile 8.4 per-frame metadata in the buffers by using kVTDecompressionPropertyKey_PropagatePerFrameHDRDisplayMetadata. This value is true by default. Asset inspection AVMediaCharacteristic provides options for specifying media type characteristics, including whether a video includes HDR metadata. You can use the Swift media characteristic containsHDRVideo to identify whether any segment of a track contains HDR so that your app can render it correctly. In Objective-C, you can use AVMediaCharacteristicContainsHDRVideo, defined in AVMediaFormat.h. After loading the tracks property using the Swift method loadValuesAsynchronously(forKeys:completionHandler:), you can get HDR tracks using tracks(withMediaCharacteristic:). Here’s how you might get all desired HDR tracks: let hdrTracks = asset.tracks(withMediaCharacteristic: .containsHDRVideo) In a similar fashion, you can use the Objective-C method loadValuesAsynchronouslyForKeys:completionHandler: to load the tracks property and obtain the HDR tracks with the method tracksWithMediaCharacteristic:, like so: NSArray<AVAssetTrack *> *hdrTracks = [asset tracksWithMediaCharacteristic:AVMediaCharacteristicContainsHDRVideo]; The hasMediaCharacteristic(_:) method can be used to track media characteristics, such as HDR media type, format descriptions, or explicit tagging. For example: if track.hasMediaCharacteristic(.containsHDRVideo){ // Process HDR track } In Objective-C, you can use the same hasMediaCharacteristic: method for explicit tagging, as demonstrated here: if([track hasMediaCharacteristic:AVMediaCharacteristicContainsHDRVideo]){ // Process HDR track } Support HDR video editing and previewing in your app To add HDR content editing to your application, use AVVideoComposition. If you’re using the built-in compositor, you can also use the Swift initializer init(asset:applyingCIFiltersWithHandler:) or the Objective-C initializer videoCompositionWithAsset:applyingCIFiltersWithHandler: with built-in CIFilters to easily incorporate an HDR editing pipeline in your app. Custom compositors can support HDR content, too: You can use the supportsHDRSourceFrames property to indicate HDR capability. For Objective-C, the supportsHDRSourceFrames property is a part of the AVVideoCompositing protocol defined in AVVideoCompositing.h. If your custom compositor needs to operate in 10-bit HDR pixel formats, you’ll need to select pixel buffer attributes that your compositor can accept as input by using the sourcePixelBufferAttributes property. For Objective-C, this property is found in AVVideoCompositing.h. The value of this property is a dictionary which contains pixel buffer attribute keys defined in CoreVideo header file CVPixelBuffer.h. Additionally, to create new buffers for processing, you’ll need the correct pixel buffer attributes required by the video compositor. For this particular purpose, use the property requiredPixelBufferAttributesForRenderContext. If your app offers video previewing during editing, modifying the pixel values may invalidate the video’s existing dynamic metadata and its usage. Because the Dolby Vision Profile 8.4 metadata is completely transparent, you can use AVPlayerItem to drop any invalid metadata during preview-only scenarios, as well as update dynamic metadata during export to reflect changes in the video content. To configure HDR settings, you can use the appliesPerFrameHDRDisplayMetadata property from AVPlayerItem , which defaults to true. In Objective-C, the property defaults to YES and can be found in AVPlayerItem.h. By default, AVFoundation will attempt to use Dolby Vision metadata if present for a video, but you can tell your app to ignore it: Just set the appliesPerFrameHDRDisplayMetadata property from AVPlayerItem to false in Swift, or NO in Objective-C. If your application is using VTDecompressionSession APIs from VideoToolbox, you can turn off Dolby Vision tone mapping with kVTDecompressionPropertyKey_PropagatePerFrameHDRDisplayMetadata. To use this property in C or Objective-C, make sure to include VideoToolbox in the framework header VTDecompressionProperties.h. Support HDR export in your app You can support HDR video export in your app when you work with AVAssetWriter and HEVC presets. Discover presets and AVAssetExportSession All HEVC presets have been upgraded to support HDR. The output format will match the source format, so if the source file is Dolby Vision Profile 8.4, the exported movie will also be Dolby Vision Profile 8.4. If you need to change the output format, you can use AVAssetWriter. Note: H.264 presets will convert HDR to Standard Dynamic Range (SDR). In order to preserve Dolby Vision Profile 8.4 during export using AVAssetWriter, you must choose a suitable output format, color properties that support Dolby Vision, and a 10-bit profile level. To start, note that querying supportedOutputSettingsKeys(for:) in Swift or supportedOutputSettingsKeysForConnection: in Objective-C provides a list of output settings keys supported for the current device. For Dolby Vision export, the video output settings dictionary key AVVideoCompressionPropertiesKey allows you to control bit rate, B-frame delivery, I-frame interval, and codec quality. The value associated with this key is an instance of NSDictionary. For Objective-C, this key is found in AVVideoSettings.h. For example, a video output settings dictionary for Dolby Vision in Swift would contain these key/value pairs: let videoOutputSettings: [String: Any] = [ AVVideoCodecKey: AVVideoCodecType.hevc, AVVideoProfileLevelKey: kVTProfileLevel_HEVC_Main10_AutoLevel, AVVideoColorPropertiesKey: [ AVVideoColorPrimariesKey: AVVideoColorPrimaries_ITU_R_2020, AVVideoTransferFunctionKey: AVVideoTransferFunction_ITU_R_2100_HLG, AVVideoYCbCrMatrixKey: AVVideoYCbCrMatrix_ITU_R_2020 ], AVVideoCompressionPropertiesKey: [ kVTCompressionPropertyKey_HDRMetadataInsertionMode: kVTHDRMetadataInsertionMode_Auto ] ] With Objective-C, your video output settings dictionary would contain the same key/value pairs: NSDictionary<NSString*, id>* videoOutputSettings = @{ AVVideoCodecKey: AVVideoCodecTypeHEVC, AVVideoProfileLevelKey: (__bridge NSString*)kVTProfileLevel_HEVC_Main10_AutoLevel, AVVideoColorPropertiesKey: @{ AVVideoColorPrimariesKey: AVVideoColorPrimaries_ITU_R_2020, AVVideoTransferFunctionKey: AVVideoTransferFunction_ITU_R_2100_HLG, AVVideoYCbCrMatrixKey: AVVideoYCbCrMatrix_ITU_R_2020 }, AVVideoCompressionPropertiesKey: @{ (__bridge NSString*)kVTCompressionPropertyKey_HDRMetadataInsertionMode: (__bridge NSString*)kVTHDRMetadataInsertionMode_Auto } }; In Objective-C, the key kVTCompressionPropertyKey_HDRMetadataInsertionMode and the value kVTHDRMetadataInsertionMode_Auto are found in VTDecompressionProperties.h. In addition to defining key/value pairs, make sure that the pixel buffers presented to AVAssetWriterInput are a 10-bit 4:2:0 Y’CbCr video range represented by 'x420' OSType. You may elect to use a separate AVAssetReader or AVAssetWriter model for export. In that case, you can use the VideoToolbox property kVTCompressionPropertyKey_PreserveDynamicHDRMetadata and set it to kCFBooleanFalse or false for C/Objective-C or Swift respectively. When you set the VideoToolbox property, AVAssetWriter will automatically recompute the Dolby Vision Profile 8.4 metadata for exporting the file. This should be done as your app modifies the output frames from the AVAssetReader. Resources Learn more about AVFoundation AVFoundation Video Toolbox Learn more about Dolby Vision Profiles

  • Developer Spotlight: WaterMinder

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 12 Feb 2021 05:00:24 PST

    Staying hydrated is like eating your vegetables: You know it’s a good idea, and you probably don’t do it enough. If that sounds like you, WaterMinder is your solution. The app makes it easy to track how much water you’ve consumed with a playful interface that’s simple, clever, and blue. And it keeps your data secure across its iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac apps by syncing via iCloud. Independent developer Kriss Smolka released WaterMinder in 2013. Today he manages a global team from his home in the suburbs of Chicago. Your customizable WaterMinder avatar fills up as you drink: The bluer it is, the more hydrated you are. Where did you get the idea for WaterMinder? After my wife and I had our second child, she was having sporadic headaches. I did a little research and came to the conclusion she might be dehydrated. “How much water do you drink?” I asked, and she said, “Oh, I have a tea in the morning and maybe three coffees during the day.” But she didn’t really know about water. How did you go about creating the app? I researched water-tracking apps but found them a little complicated. I thought, “OK, maybe this just needs to be simplified.” I created a mockup, and after a couple of days of her being hydrated, the headaches went away. I figured if I could help her, maybe I could help other people as well. We released our first version in July 2013. What was the early reception like? We got a couple hundred downloads on our first day, and I remember thinking, “Wow, people actually paid for something that we created.” But after a free promotion that got traction with media outlets, we had hundreds of thousands of downloads. It was amazing—a chance for people to get to know the app. How is the WaterMinder team working these days? I’m in Chicago. We have five engineers in India, a content writer in Ireland, our marketing guys in Holland, and a designer in Australia. We’re used to working remotely! What’s the best advice you’ve received? Something stuck with me when we were doing that promotion: Someone from a French website reached out and said, “Sit back and enjoy the ride.” When we got those early analytics, we were like, ‘Oh, wow!’” We were enjoying the ride, but it was also a roller coaster. Originally published on the App Store. Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program Learn more about WaterMinder on the App Store

  • Apple Push Notification service server certificate update

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 10 Feb 2021 10:46:41 PST

    On March 29, 2021, token and certificate-based HTTP/2 connections to the Apple Push Notification service must incorporate the new root certificate (AAACertificateServices 5/12/2020) which replaces the old GeoTrust Global CA root certificate. To ensure a seamless transition and to avoid push notification delivery failures, verify that both the old and new root certificates for the HTTP/2 interface are included in the Trust Store of each of your notification servers before March 29. Note that Apple Push Notification service SSL provider certificates issued to you by Apple do not need be to updated at this time. Learn more about connecting to APNs

  • Upcoming tax and price changes for apps and in-app purchases

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 10 Feb 2021 10:02:36 PST

    When taxes or foreign exchange rates change, we sometimes need to update prices on the App Store in certain regions and/or adjust your proceeds. In the next few days, your proceeds will be adjusted in the following regions and will be calculated based on the tax-exclusive price. Cameroon: New value-added tax of 19.25% Zimbabwe: New value-added tax of 14.5% Prices of apps and in-app purchases (excluding auto-renewable subscriptions) on the App Store will increase in these regions. Germany: Value-added tax rate reversion to 19% after temporary decrease to 16%. Prices on the App Store will not change. Republic of Korea: Prices of alternative tiers for apps and in-app purchases (excluding auto-renewable subscriptions) will be adjusted to allow for additional locally relevant pricing conventions. Once these changes go into effect, the Pricing and Availability section of My Apps will be updated. You can change the price of your apps and in-app purchases (including auto-renewable subscriptions) at any time in App Store Connect. If you offer subscriptions, you can choose to preserve prices for existing subscribers. View the updated price tier charts

  • Developer Spotlight: Streaks

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 05 Feb 2021 05:00:27 PST

    If you’re a productivity-minded person, there’s only one thing better than crossing something off your to-do list: Crossing everything off your to-do list. Quentin Zervaas knows this well — so well he turned the concept into Streaks. The app tracks the number of consecutive days you’ve completed a task and securely syncs your history across iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac via iCloud. What you complete — whether walking the dog, working out, or meditating — is up to you. The idea is to stay driven to check off those to-dos every day. The App Store spoke to Zervaas from his hometown of Adelaide, South Australia, where he and Streaks cocreator Isaac Forman are working to keep up their winning streak. Streaks gamifies your to-do list: Can you hit all six tasks every day? How did you get the idea for Streaks? As a small business owner, I would do certain things each day — bookkeeping, sending support emails. I was also trying to write a book and struggling. Eventually I adopted the strategy “I want to get something done every single day, whether it’s a sentence, a paragraph, or a page.” I was tracking everything in a text editor until I thought, “I build apps; I could probably make this nicer.” Isaac Forman and I whipped up a prototype that looks pretty much as Streaks does now, just without the colors and icons. How did you land on Streaks tracking six tasks per day? I found if I did four or five tasks, a sixth — even if it was completely unrelated — needed to be done too. I just wanted to finish it. So I would put the more difficult one at the end. That gamification really motivates you to get everything done. What’s the most surprising request you’ve received? One of the key features is there aren’t any boundaries on the tasks you can add. There are probably 500 icons the app will suggest based on what you type as your task, so I get a lot of icon requests. Someone recently asked us to add a Viking helmet. Maybe they’re a costume designer or they’re playing an online game, I’m not sure. You won an Apple Design Award in 2016. How did you celebrate? As it happened, I was getting married the weekend before WWDC that year. We got married, got to the airport at 6 a.m. the next day, and headed off on the 19-hour plane ride to San Francisco. My wife wasn’t thrilled with that, but luckily we got to travel around the city, Napa, and Sonoma, so it worked out OK. What’s the best advice you’ve received? Before Streaks I was working on public transportation apps; someone said to me, “You’re doing this now, but it won’t be your last business.” That’s a good mindset for independent developers: Remember, there’s always something new on the horizon. Originally published on the App Store. Learn more about Streaks on the App Store Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

  • New and updated Apple design resources now available

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 03 Feb 2021 16:54:46 PST

    Designing apps for Apple platforms just got easier. Now you can quickly lay out your app for macOS Big Sur or tvOS 14 using new design templates, components, guides, and more. All major macOS and tvOS components, such as buttons, segmented controls, alerts, menus, and other controls, are included. In addition, the updated iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 design resources for Sketch have been rebuilt to support color variables, and include numerous minor improvements and bug fixes. View resources

  • Take advantage of new advertising attribution technologies

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 01 Feb 2021 16:48:25 PST

    SKAdNetwork 2.2. This update supports view-through attribution for advertisement formats such as video, audio, and interactive advertisements. This allows you to display your choice of advertising formats and measure which creatives are most effective, while preserving user privacy. Private Click Measurement. iOS 14.5 and iPadOS 14.5 bring Private Click Measurement to apps, in addition to the web. Advertising networks can now measure the effectiveness of advertisement clicks within iOS or iPadOS apps that navigate to a website. This information can be used to understand which advertisements drive conversions (such as purchases or signups) — while maintaining user privacy. Get started by building and testing your apps with the beta versions of Xcode 12.5, iOS 14.5, and iPadOS 14.5. Learn more about SKAdNetwork Learn more about Private Click Measurement Download the latest betas

  • App Store Review Guideline updates now available

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 01 Feb 2021 11:11:42 PST

    The App Store is a safe and trusted place for customers to discover and download apps, and a great opportunity for developers. The App Store Review Guideline changes and clarifications support new features in upcoming OS releases, better protect customers, and help your apps go through the review process as smoothly as possible. Review the updates below. Please note that all new apps and app updates submitted to the App Store must follow the revised guideline 5.1.2(i) by early spring 2021. 1.4.3: Clarified the prohibition of promoting certain substances: “Apps that encourage consumption of tobacco and vape products, illegal drugs, or excessive amounts of alcohol are not permitted on the App Store. Apps that encourage minors to consume any of these substances will be rejected. Facilitating the sale of controlled substances (except for licensed pharmacies), marijuana, or tobacco is not allowed.” 2.3: Clarified the information that must accurately reflect the app’s core experience: “Customers should know what they’re getting when they download or buy your app, so make sure all your app metadata, including privacy information, your app description, screenshots, and previews accurately reflect the app’s core experience and remember to keep them up-to-date with new versions.” 2.3.7: Clarified what metadata shouldn’t include: “Choose a unique app name, assign keywords that accurately describe your app, and don’t try to pack any of your metadata with trademarked terms, popular app names, pricing information, or other irrelevant phrases just to game the system. App names must be limited to 30 characters. Metadata such as app names, subtitles, screenshots, and previews should not include prices, terms, or descriptions that are not specific to the metadata type. App subtitles are a great way to provide additional context for your app; they must follow our standard metadata rules and should not include inappropriate content, reference other apps, or make unverifiable product claims. Apple may modify inappropriate keywords at any time or take other appropriate steps to prevent abuse.” 2.4.5(viii): Removed Rosetta as an example: “Apps should run on the currently shipping OS and may not use deprecated or optionally installed technologies (e.g., Java).” 3.1.1: Clarified that these items must be sold through in-app purchase: “Gift cards, certificates, vouchers, and coupons which can be redeemed for digital goods or services can only be sold in your app using in-app purchase.” 3.1.1: Clarified how apps can enable customers to “tip” developers: “Apps may use in-app purchase currencies to enable customers to “tip” the developer or digital content providers in the app.” 3.1.1: Deleted: “Remember to assign the correct purchasability type or your app will be rejected.” 3.1.2(a): Clarified how certain games can offer a subscription across third-party apps and services: “Games offered in a streaming game service subscription may offer a single subscription that is shared across third-party apps and services; however, they must be downloaded directly from the App Store, must be designed to avoid duplicate payment by a subscriber, and should not disadvantage non-subscriber customers.” 3.1.3(c): Clarified what enterprise users can access and what purchase methods they can use: “Enterprise Services: If your app is only sold directly by you to organizations or groups for their employees or students (for example professional databases and classroom management tools), you may allow enterprise users to access previously-purchased content or subscriptions. Consumer, single user, or family sales must use in-app purchase.” 3.1.3(d): Changed terminology from “person-to-person experiences” to “person-to-person services” to clarify that services provided by one individual to another are in scope: “If your app enables the purchase of realtime person-to-person services between two individuals (for example tutoring students, medical consultations, real estate tours, or fitness training), you may use purchase methods other than in-app purchase to collect those payments. One-to-few and one-to-many realtime services must use in-app purchase.” 3.2.1(viii): Clarified who can create apps for these services. Removed option to use a public API: “Apps used for financial trading, investing, or money management should come from the financial institution performing such services.” 3.2.2(ix): Removed duplicative section regarding forcing users to perform actions, which is fully covered by 3.2.2(vi); renumbered former 3.2.2(x). 4.2.3(iii): Clarified the information that certain apps need to disclose: “If your app needs to download additional resources in order to function on initial launch, disclose the size of the download and prompt users before doing so.” 5.1.1(ix): Clarified that gambling is a heavily-regulated field in scope: “Apps that provide services in highly-regulated fields (such as banking and financial services, healthcare, gambling and air travel) or that require sensitive user information should be submitted by a legal entity that provides the services, and not by an individual developer.” 5.1.2(i): Added: “You must receive explicit permission from users via the App Tracking Transparency APIs to track their activity. Learn more about tracking.” After You Submit: Reordered the paragraph describing appeals for clarity. Read the App Store Review Guidelines

  • Developer Spotlight: MySwimPro

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 29 Jan 2021 04:00:27 PST

    Sometimes a good idea hits you like a splash of cold water. Fares Ksebati cocreated MySwimPro in 2015 to provide a deep pool of aquatic workout videos for like-minded athletes. The app syncs with Apple Health to keep your swimming and workout data secure. With 2021 being an Olympic year, he and cofounder Adam Oxner are poised to make even bigger waves: “Swimming gets a lot of public notoriety every four years,” says Ksebati. We spoke to Ksebati, a three-time U.S. Masters swimming champion, about the power of incremental change and what every entrepreneur should know before diving into app development. No pool? MySwimPro has hundreds of dryland videos to help swimmers stay in shape. How did you start creating apps? Before launching MySwimPro in 2015, I worked at four different startups and was always coaching swimming on the side. At the time, there was really nothing that addressed swimmers, so that’s when the light-bulb moment happened. If you work on something you understand intimately, it’s a lot easier because you have that intuition, that unique lens. I’m a swimmer and a coach, but above all I’m a swimming nerd. I not only understand it but I care about it. How is the MySwimPro team structured these days? Our HQ is technically in Ann Arbor, but we have team members across the United States and a few countries like Turkey and Ukraine. The app is in nine languages, and we were able to do most of that in-house because we speak almost a dozen languages on our team, which is really unique. What do you do as a team to stay motivated? Go to the pool! I literally went for a swim two hours ago. Because we’re a fitness brand, it’s part of our culture to take a break in the middle of the day. I want everybody to feel comfortable doing that, even if they’re not swimming. What’s been the most challenging time for your team, and how did you get through it? Back in March, when pools were closing, we thought, “OK, this could be two or three years, but we can’t sit around and do nothing.” So we took action very quickly, creating 200 dryland videos and eight training programs. We went to my brother’s house and rearranged his living room into an at-home fitness facility. What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you started? That it's really important to be consistent, that it takes time to develop, and that if you can just be a little bit better every single day, the compounding impact is absolutely insane. We’ve been at this for five years, which is more than 1,800 days, and we’re trying to be at least 1 percent better each day. Originally published on the App Store. Learn more about MySwimPro on the App Store Learn more about the App Store Small Business Program

  • AppTrackingTransparency requirement update

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 28 Jan 2021 20:37:32 PST

    Late last year, to give you additional time to prepare, we had temporarily deferred the requirement to use AppTrackingTransparency when requesting permission to track users and access device advertising identifiers. This requirement now goes into effect starting with the upcoming beta update, and will roll out to everyone in early spring with an upcoming release of iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and tvOS 14. We encourage you to verify your app’s implementation of AppTrackingTransparency as soon as possible. Without the user’s permission, you will not be allowed to track them and the device’s advertising identifier value will be all zeros. In an upcoming release of iOS and iPadOS, we will enhance SKAdNetwork and add Private Click Measurement support for apps, allowing advertising networks to better attribute advertisements that display within apps on these platforms. Private Click Measurement enables the measurement of ad campaigns that direct users to websites while preserving user privacy. Additional details are coming soon. Learn more about user privacy and data use

  • Identity Pinning: How to configure server certificates for your app

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 14 Jan 2021 16:29:31 PST

    If your app sends or receives data over the network, it’s critical to preserve the privacy and integrity of a person’s information and protect it from data breaches and attacks. You should use the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol to protect content in transit and authenticate the server receiving the data. When you connect through TLS, the server provides a certificate or certificate chain to establish its identity. You can further limit the set of server certificates your app trusts by pinning their public-key identities in your app. Here’s how to get started. When to use pinning By default, when your app connects to a secure TLS network, the system evaluates server trustworthiness by default. Most apps can meet their security requirements by relying on this behavior; however, certain apps may need to further limit the set of trusted certificates. For example, your app may need to meet regulatory requirements that determine which specific Certificate Authorities (CAs) can be trusted. While Apple platforms ensure by default that only trustworthy CAs are involved, your app can use identity pinning to further limit the set of CAs to those associated with a particular government or organization. Pinning cannot loosen the trust requirements of your app — it can only tighten them. You still always need to meet the system’s default trust requirements when using public-key certificates involved in a TLS network connection. Note: When you’ve configured your app to expect a specific set of public keys for a given server, it will refuse to connect to that server unless those public keys are involved. As a result, if the server deploys new certificates that alter the public keys, your app will refuse to connect. At that point, you’ll need to update your app with a pinning configuration that reflects the new set of public keys. Think long term If you want to use identity pinning in your app, consider creating a long-term strategy that accounts for both planned and unplanned events so that you can prevent pinning failures. Your app can proactively provide a great experience by pinning the public keys of CAs, instead of servers. This way, you can deploy server certificates that contain new public keys signed by the same CA without the need for pinning configuration updates. You can also consider pinning more than one public key, especially when pinning server identities. This way, your app will still be able to connect to configured servers even if they revoke or rotate certificates. Additionally, plan to provide a fallback experience in your app if it’s unable to connect to a server in the event of a pinning failure. First, think of ways your app experience may be impacted, and come up with mitigating solutions for any negative side effects. Can the app still function without making that connection, and can you provide someone with a temporary recovery path? You’ll also want to plan for an eventual recovery path. One way you can address pinning failures is through a new pinning configuration, delivered via app update. Consider whether that’s an option given the use cases of your app. We highly recommend simulating various events and potential failure points when testing your app by acquiring additional public-key certificates for this purpose and varying the configuration of your server accordingly. How to pin CA public keys A pinned CA public key must appear in a certificate chain either in an intermediate or root certificate. Pinned keys are always associated with a domain name, and the app will refuse to connect to that domain unless the pinning requirement is met. As an example, to require the presence of a specific CA public key when connecting to the example.org domain name, you can add the following entries to the Info.plist file of your app. NSAppTransportSecurity NSPinnedDomains example.org NSIncludesSubdomains NSPinnedCAIdentities SPKI-SHA256-BASE64 r/mIkG3eEpVdm+u/ko/cwxzOMo1bk4TyHIlByibiA5E= <key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key> <dict> <key>NSPinnedDomains</key> <dict> <key>example.org</key> <dict> <key>NSIncludesSubdomains</key> <true/> <key>NSPinnedCAIdentities</key> <array> <dict> <key>SPKI-SHA256-BASE64</key> <string>r/mIkG3eEpVdm+u/ko/cwxzOMo1bk4TyHIlByibiA5E=</string> </dict> </array> </dict> </dict> </dict> In this example, the pinned public key is associated with example.org and also subdomains such as math.example.org and history.example.org, but it won’t be associated with advanced.math.example.org, or ancient.history.example.org. The public key is expressed as the Base64-encoded SHA-256 digest of an X.509 certificate’s DER-encoded ASN.1 Subject Public Key Info structure. Assuming the following PEM-encoded public-key certificate, stored in file ca.pem, you can calculate its SPKI-SHA256-BASE64 value with the openssl command. -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- MIIDrzCCApegAwIBAgIQCDvgVpBCRrGhdWrJWZHHSjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQUFADBh MQswCQYDVQQGEwJVUzEVMBMGA1UEChMMRGlnaUNlcnQgSW5jMRkwFwYDVQQLExB3 d3cuZGlnaWNlcnQuY29tMSAwHgYDVQQDExdEaWdpQ2VydCBHbG9iYWwgUm9vdCBD QTAeFw0wNjExMTAwMDAwMDBaFw0zMTExMTAwMDAwMDBaMGExCzAJBgNVBAYTAlVT MRUwEwYDVQQKEwxEaWdpQ2VydCBJbmMxGTAXBgNVBAsTEHd3dy5kaWdpY2VydC5j b20xIDAeBgNVBAMTF0RpZ2lDZXJ0IEdsb2JhbCBSb290IENBMIIBIjANBgkqhkiG 9w0BAQEFAAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEA4jvhEXLeqKTTo1eqUKKPC3eQyaKl7hLOllsB CSDMAZOnTjC3U/dDxGkAV53ijSLdhwZAAIEJzs4bg7/fzTtxRuLWZscFs3YnFo97 nh6Vfe63SKMI2tavegw5BmV/Sl0fvBf4q77uKNd0f3p4mVmFaG5cIzJLv07A6Fpt 43C/dxC//AH2hdmoRBBYMql1GNXRor5H4idq9Joz+EkIYIvUX7Q6hL+hqkpMfT7P T19sdl6gSzeRntwi5m3OFBqOasv+zbMUZBfHWymeMr/y7vrTC0LUq7dBMtoM1O/4 gdW7jVg/tRvoSSiicNoxBN33shbyTApOB6jtSj1etX+jkMOvJwIDAQABo2MwYTAO BgNVHQ8BAf8EBAMCAYYwDwYDVR0TAQH/BAUwAwEB/zAdBgNVHQ4EFgQUA95QNVbR TLtm8KPiGxvDl7I90VUwHwYDVR0jBBgwFoAUA95QNVbRTLtm8KPiGxvDl7I90VUw DQYJKoZIhvcNAQEFBQADggEBAMucN6pIExIK+t1EnE9SsPTfrgT1eXkIoyQY/Esr hMAtudXH/vTBH1jLuG2cenTnmCmrEbXjcKChzUyImZOMkXDiqw8cvpOp/2PV5Adg 06O/nVsJ8dWO41P0jmP6P6fbtGbfYmbW0W5BjfIttep3Sp+dWOIrWcBAI+0tKIJF PnlUkiaY4IBIqDfv8NZ5YBberOgOzW6sRBc4L0na4UU+Krk2U886UAb3LujEV0ls YSEY1QSteDwsOoBrp+uvFRTp2InBuThs4pFsiv9kuXclVzDAGySj4dzp30d8tbQk CAUw7C29C79Fv1C5qfPrmAESrciIxpg0X40KPMbp1ZWVbd4= -----END CERTIFICATE----- $ cat ca.pem | openssl x509 -inform pem -noout -outform pem -pubkey | openssl pkey -pubin -inform pem -outform der | openssl dgst -sha256 -binary | openssl enc -base64 To introduce redundancy into your pinning configuration, you can associate multiple public keys with a domain name. <key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key> <dict> <key>NSPinnedDomains</key> <dict> <key>example.org</key> <dict> <key>NSIncludesSubdomains</key> <true/> <key>NSPinnedCAIdentities</key> <array> <dict> <key>SPKI-SHA256-BASE64</key> <string>r/mIkG3eEpVdm+u/ko/cwxzOMo1bk4TyHIlByibiA5E=</string> </dict> </array> </dict> <key>example.net</key> <dict> <key>NSPinnedLeafIdentities</key> <array> <dict> <key>SPKI-SHA256-BASE64</key> <string>i9HaIScvf6T/skE3/A7QOq5n5cTYs8UHNOEFCnkguSI=</string> </dict> <dict> <key>SPKI-SHA256-BASE64</key> <string>i9HaIScvf6T/skE3/A7QOq5n5cTYs8UHNOEFCnkguSI=</string> </dict> </array> </dict> </dict> </dict> For example, to pin multiple public keys for the example.net server certificate, you would add individual entries as items in an array to the Info.plist file of your app. To satisfy the pinning requirement for a connection to example.net, the server certificate must include one of those keys. Resources NSAppTransportSecurity

  • Meet App Clip Codes

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 13 Jan 2021 09:00:14 PST

    App Clip Codes are customizable Apple-designed markers built to launch your App Clip. When someone scans your App Clip Code, it will bring up your App Clip or, if the person already has your app installed, will directly launch into a specific part of your app. Each code has a distinct design: It’s immediately recognizable, unique to each App Clip, and provides people with a secure and reliable way to trigger your experience. Codes can even incorporate an NFC tag, allowing people to open an App Clip by simply holding their iPhone nearby without needing to scan it through the Camera app. You can easily make App Clip Codes and customize them to match your company’s brand or internal designs. Here’s how you can create new codes and pick the right code for the experience you want to provide to your customers. Plan for your App Clip experience To create new App Clip Codes, use the App Clip Code Generator. When you make a new code, you can choose its colors, assign a custom URL that resolves for your app, and decide whether to create a code that supports NFC (Near Field Communication). Single vs multiple App Clip Codes If you’ve created a single App Clip for your app, you can make a single App Clip Code so that everyone who scans the code gets the same information. For example, if you own a restaurant, placing the same App Clip Code at every table can bring up an App Clip with your digital menu and payment options. Every instance of the single code delivers the same experience. You can also duplicate the same App Clip Code for use on items like hardware packaging: For instance, if you have a product that requires an in-app setup experience, you can add the same App Clip Code to your packaging to bring your customers directly to the setup experience or interactive instruction manual. As with the restaurant example, you’re always bringing customers to the same experience within your app, so you only need to create a single unique App Clip Code and duplicate it across your material. If you offer multiple App Clips or advanced App Clip experiences, you can create unique codes for each experience. For example, if you have an app for your restaurant and want to offer an App Clip for ordering takeout on your advertising as well as a different App Clip for people ordering at your restaurant's outdoor tables, you can create discrete App Clip Codes for each that invoke different parts of the app. Should you use NFC? People can interact with App Clip Codes in two ways: Scan Only or NFC. Scanned codes work when someone uses the Barcode reader or the Camera app on iPhone or iPad to view the code, which then delivers a customized URL they can tap on that brings them into the app. In contrast, NFC-integrated codes let people simply hold their device near an App Clip Code to invoke the App Clip. While you have the flexibility to choose either type to best suit your needs, we recommend using an NFC-integrated App Clip Code whenever someone can easily physically access your App Clip Code. Examples include: On a restaurant tabletop Near point-of-sale hardware systems In a storefront window On easily-accessible signage On a gift card, coupon, or other offer If you integrate an NFC tag with your App Clip code, be sure to use a Type 5 NFC tag at least 35mm in diameter (or equivalent) to ensure the best experience. Learn more about designing for NFC If your code is displayed digitally or in an area where NFC doesn’t make sense, use the Scan Only version. Examples include: On distant posters or street advertising On signage behind a counter or otherwise out of reach In digital materials such as an email or social media images Customize the look of your App Clip Code To make your App Clip Code stand out, you can customize the foreground and background color and create something consistent with your app or company’s brand. App Store Connect provides both default App Clip Code colors and an option for selecting your own colors. Note that if you choose the latter option, Apple will automatically generate the third color in the App Clip Code to ensure sufficient contrast for an accurate scanning experience. Create your App Clip Code Once you’re ready to make your own App Clip Codes, you can get started in App Store Connect or through Apple’s command line tools. App Clip Codes are easy to create, letting you get your App Clip experiences up and running and helping people quickly access the right parts of your app at the right moment. Resources Learn more about designing App Clip Codes WWDC20 Explore App Clips Help people experience the right parts of your app at the exact moment they need them. We’ll explain how to design and build an App Clip — a small part of your app that focuses on a specific task — and make it easily discoverable. Learn how to focus your App Clip on short and fast... WWDC20 Configure and link your App Clips App Clips are small parts of an app that offer a streamlined, direct experience and help people get what they need at the right time. Learn how you can invoke an App Clip through real-world experiences like App Clip Codes, NFC, and QR codes, or have them appear digitally through apps like Maps or...

  • Design and implement macOS document icons

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 11 Jan 2021 09:30:21 PST

    A good document icon aids in the identification of your file on the Desktop, in a Finder window, or in an open dialog, especially when previews aren’t available. These icons may be displayed on screen as small as 16pt or large enough to showcase every glorious design detail. Depending on the file type and personal preference, document icons can also display document previews. If someone has chosen not to show document extensions in System Preferences, these icons can additionally provide additional context in deciphering their file type and native program. With macOS Big Sur, you can customize and control how your app’s document icons display across the system. We’ll show you how to design a great icon, integrate it into your Xcode project, and assign document types and type identifiers. Design a document icon for your app By default, if you don’t specify a document icon for a file type in your app, macOS will automatically create one for you by compositing your app’s icon together with the correct extension name. This is a common pattern for imported document types or non-proprietary file formats that your application can open such as MP3, JPG or PNG. Both the Music and Preview apps use system-generated document icons for document types like JPG and MP3. You can additionally create a custom document icon if your app supports multiple file types and you’d like to visually distinguish between them. For example, a drawing application may open a jpg file, a project file, a library of drawing components, a plugin or a color swatch. When creating a custom icon, we recommend keeping its design simple. Try to depict what your icon represents as closely as possible and with as few details as possible. Additionally, think of other document types that your document may commonly be next to, and use distinct shapes and colors that are identifiable even at smaller sizes. If you plan to create multiple custom icons for different file types, it’s important to make each design distinct and understandable to help people know what to expect when they open them. The elements of a custom document icon Beginning with macOS Big Sur, you can generate a new custom document icon with a set of images and a text string. Breaking down document icon composition To create a new custom document icon, you can provide a background fill, center image, or text string. Each of these three elements is optional, allowing you to use just one element or any combination of the three to customize your icon. From there, macOS will automatically layer, position, and mask these elements, then composite them into a page icon with a right corner fold. You can download Sketch and Photoshop templates on Apple Design Resources to assist in the generation of the image assets in all their required sizes. Apple Design Resources Fill in the background The background image allows you to customize the background of your icon. The art should fill the entire drawing area, as shown below, and the system will automatically mask it to the document shape in all sizes. Document icon background Background images can not only be used to change the background of your document, but you can also use them to create custom designs that fill the entire page. The background image should be drawn in the following sizes: 512x512 512x512@2x 256x256 256x256@2x 128x128 128x128@2x 32x32 32x32@2x 16x16 16x16@2x The Xcode Project icon and the Rich Text Format icons use nothing but the background fill element to create a custom look and feel. Add a center image The center image is always half the size of the document canvas. For example, the center image displays at 16pt on a 32pt icon size. The bulk of the artwork for the center image should be drawn at ~80% of the canvas size. For example, on the 256x256 version, the drawing should be inside a 205x205 area, as shown in the image below. Curves and points can extend into the margin to adjust for optical alignment. The shape of the artwork should be simple to make it easily identifiable in smaller sizes. The rendering, however, can be as simple or as rich as you’d like. The center image can be specified in the following sizes: 256x256 256x256@2x 128x128 128x128@2x 32x32 32x32@2x 16x16 16x16@2x Add some textual context The icon’s text string will often be your document’s extension, but can also be something more descriptive. For example, "SCENE" is more descriptive — and easier for someone to understand — than "scn." The Swift and Metal document icons both use text strings to clearly identify their document types. The system will capitalize and scale the text to fit inside the icon, so it’s important to keep the length of your string as short of possible to prevent it from getting too small. The text will also automatically change its color to remain legible against flat colored backgrounds. Build document icons in your app To create your document icon types, you’ll need to integrate these elements into your Xcode project. Bring images into the asset catalog First, add your background fill image and/or center image into the Asset Catalog as Generic Icons. In Xcode, click the + button within your Asset Catalog. Choose macOS > macOS Generic Icon. Drag your assets into their respective size slots. If your assets are named using the format icon_[size]x[size][@resolution].png (e.g. icon_32x32@2x.png or icon_32x32.png), they can all be dragged at once and will automatically be assigned to their appropriate size slots. Asset Catalog with an image set of center images. Configure the Document Type Identifier Click the Imported/Exported Type Identifier disclosure triangle to add a new Document Type Identifier or open an existing one. Example: Document Type configuration Icon Image (optional): Select a Center Image from your app’s Asset Catalog. Icon Fill (optional): Select a Background Fill Image from your app’s Asset Catalog Icon Text (optional): Input the text you want displayed on the bottom of the document icon. This can be the same as the extension or something more descriptive. For example, the scn extension can use scene as its text. Legacy Icon (optional): This is either an .icns file or a Generic Icon in your Asset Catalog which will be used if you deploy your application to macOS 10.15 and below or in macOS 11 if Icon Image, Icon Fill and Icon Text are left blank. If you don’t provide a legacy icon, macOS 10.15 and earlier will create one for you by compositing your app’s icon inside the old style document sheet. If a Legacy Icon was specified in the Document Type section, it will override this. Declaring New Uniform Type Identifiers Configure your document icons Here’s how to indicate whether you want to display a legacy document icon, a custom icon, a programmatic option. In Xcode’s Project navigator, select the project file. Select your app's target from the target list. Choose the Info tab. Click the Document Type disclosure triangle to add a new Document Type or open an existing one. Document type configuration panel You’ll have two options here for iconography: Legacy Icon (optional): This is either an .icns file or a Generic Icon in your Asset Catalog. macOS uses legacy icons if you deploy your app to macOS 10.15 or earlier, or if you want a custom icon on macOS 11. If you don’t provide a legacy icon, macOS 10.15 and earlier will create one for you by compositing your app’s icon inside the old style document sheet. If you’ve specified a Legacy Icon in the Document Type Identifier, the one in the Document Type will override it. Use system generated icons: Check this box if you’ve defined an Icon Fill, Image or Text in the Document Type Identifier for use in macOS 11 and above, or you want the system to use your App’s icon and extension name as your icon. If you leave this box unchecked, macOS will use your Legacy Icon for that document type even when running macOS 11 and above. Developing a Document-Based App Validate your app document icons You can test your new document icons in your app by building and running your app. Here’s what you need to do. Remove all other versions of your app from your test system and empty the Trash. Open your app project in Xcode Build and run your app Gather test assets by creating a new folder and adding one of each document type. Open the test asset folder in Finder. In Finder, go to View > Show View Options to open the “View Options” window for your test asset folder. Make sure that “Show icon preview” is unchecked. Bring some life into your documents Document icons in macOS Big Sur are an excellent way to further refine your app’s design on Mac and help people identify the correct file at a glance. For more support on creating these icons, be sure to check out the Apple Design Resources and developer documentation. Updated on January 11, 2021 to provide more information about legacy icons. Resources Learn more about designing document icons Apple Design Resources Developing a Document-Based App Uniform Type Identifier Concepts Declaring New Uniform Type Identifiers Adopting Uniform Type Identifiers Introduction to Uniform Type Identifiers

  • How to convert existing web extensions for Safari

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 05 Jan 2021 09:00:38 PST

    When you create a Safari Web Extension, you can help people get common online tasks done more quickly and efficiently — all while using the same extension model and APIs found in extensions for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge browsers. If you have an existing web extension you’d like to prepare for distribution in the Mac App Store, it’s easy to to get started with the converter tool in Xcode 12. Here’s how to go about it. WWDC20 Meet Safari Web Extensions When you create a Safari Web Extension, you can help people get common online tasks done more quickly and efficiently. We’ll show you how to build a new Safari Web Extension and host it on the App Store, as well as how to use the safari-web-extension-converter tool to migrate existing extensions... Safari web extensions Convert an extension Before getting started, make sure you’ve installed the latest versions of Xcode 12, Command Line Tools, and Safari 14. When ready, you can then run the following command in the Terminal app: xcrun safari-web-extension-converter /path/to/my/extension/ The converter tool will search for your extension’s manifest at ./path/to/my/extension/manifest.json and generate a default configuration for your Xcode project. If the configuration appears correct, type yes at the prompt and press the Return key. If not, type no and you can enter the converter tool’s interactive mode to customize the configuration. Note: Verify your keys During the conversion process, safari-web-extension-converter will look through your manifest for any keys that aren’t supported by your installed version of Safari. If Xcode finds any issues, the app will display a warning message. If you receive this, consider whether the affected keys are critical for your extension to function. You may still be able to leave these keys in place and have everything run smoothly, but be sure to test your extension to confirm. Adjust a converted extension in Xcode Safari Web Extensions require a container app so that you can easily distribute your extension on the Mac App Store. As part of the conversion process, Xcode automatically creates and opens a container app project that contains your extension files. From here, you can test your extension, make any necessary code changes, update your extension’s icon, and upload your container app for distribution through the Mac App Store. Test, test, and test again While inside your Xcode project, you can build and run your extension by either pressing Command-R or the Play button in the upper left portion of the screen. Your container app has a button to open Safari Extensions preferences. Select this button to open Safari and enable your extension in the browser. Note: If this is your first time testing an extension through Xcode, you’ll need to enable support for unsigned extensions in Safari. To do so, follow these steps: Open Safari. Select Safari > Preferences. Navigate to the Advanced tab. Check the ”Show Develop menu in menu bar” checkbox. Navigate to the Develop menu and select ”Allow Unsigned Extensions.” You may have to enter your admin password to make changes. Make any code changes By default, your Xcode project references your extension’s existing content as well as native Swift or Objective-C code to create the container app. After testing, you can make any needed changes to this project; any alterations you make will automatically show up as part of your Safari Web Extension the next time you build your Xcode project. Update your icon Xcode will use any extension icons listed in your manifest as your app icon, which will also display on your Mac App Store listing. Because Safari Web Extension icons are typically smaller, however, you may want to update to a higher-resolution version of this image for the best look. icon upload in Xcode screenshot To change your icons, select the Assets.xcassets folder in the Xcode sidebar, then drag the new icons into the appropriately-sized image wells. Add any additional files to your Xcode project If you need to add additional resources or code files to your extension after conversion — for example, images used by your user interface or other dependencies missed during conversion — you will also need to manually include these files in your Xcode project. To do so, select any additional files in Finder and drag them into the Resources folder within your Xcode project, located in the left sidebar. Uncheck ’Copy items if needed’ in the file dialog to make sure these files automatically associate with your app. Distribute your extension When you’re ready to share your extension, sign in with your Apple Developer account to App Store Connect and upload the container app to for distribution. Remember to review the App Store guidelines before submitting to the Mac App Store; Apple reviews all extensions and extension updates to verify they work reliably. Learn more about submitting extensions to the Mac App Store

  • Prepare for Strong Customer Authentication transactions in the European Economic Area

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 21 Dec 2020 16:26:24 PST

    Online purchase flows for users in the European Economic Area may be impacted by the European Union’s upcoming Strong Customer Authentication requirements. The App Store and Apple Pay will support Strong Customer Authentication. We recommend that you verify your app’s implementation of StoreKit and Apple Pay to make sure purchases are handled correctly. Learn more

  • App Clip Codes now available

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 14 Dec 2020 16:10:59 PST

    Easily discoverable and quick to launch at the moment it’s needed, an App Clip is a small part of your app that lets users start and finish an experience in seconds. While you can offer users several ways to discover your App Clip, the best way is with an App Clip Code. Visually beautiful and distinct, each App Clip Code encodes a URL and can incorporate an NFC tag. Users can hold their iPhone near the code or scan it with the camera to open your App Clip and quickly complete a task, before downloading your app. Codes can now be created in App Store Connect or with the new command line App Clip Code Generator, which provides the flexibility to build your own batch generation process. Learn about App Clip Codes

  • App privacy labels now live on the App Store

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 14 Dec 2020 13:46:57 PST

    The App Store now helps users better understand an app’s privacy practices before they download the app on any Apple platform. On each app’s product page, users can learn about some of the data types an app may collect, and whether that data is linked to them or used to track them. As a reminder, your app’s privacy information is required to submit new apps and app updates to the App Store, and some data is optional to disclose if it meets specific criteria, such as certain data from health research apps and regulated financial services. You may update your answers at any time without resubmitting your app or going through App Review. Learn more about the details you’ll need to provide Learn how to provide app privacy information in App Store Connect

  • How to store URLs in your App Clip Codes

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 14 Dec 2020 11:00:39 PST

    An App Clip is a small part of your app which provides specific information that best suits a given task or situation. An App Clip Code activates your App Clip, helping people access relevant information wherever they happen to be — whether they’re picking up takeout from a restaurant, reading an article online, or passing by an advertisement in their neighborhood. To make your App Clip Code, you’ll need to create a URL that directly connects to your content. And because codes can only hold a finite number of characters, you’ll need to design your URL efficiently. Here’s what you need to know to make and store a URL for your App Clip Code. How App Clip Code URLs work App Clip Codes support URLs in the following format: https://[host][/<optional path>][?<optional query>][#<optional fragment>] URLs must use the https scheme, all lowercase. The host segment can only contain lowercase ASCII characters ‘a’ to ‘z’, ‘.’ and ‘-’ characters. Host is the only part of the authority component of the URL that is supported. The rest of the URL can have zero or more path components, zero or more query components, and, optionally, a fragment component. These components can contain the following ASCII characters: a to z, A to Z, 0 to 9, and /#?=%-._,+;:&. Creating App Clip Codes How to store URLs efficiently in your App Clip Codes When creating a URL, you can optimize its string length to fit within the App Clip Code’s character limit in a number of different ways. Make it short and sweet Above all, aim for your URLs to be as short and concise as possible. URLs with fewer characters, path, and query components have a better chance to fit into an App Clip Code. We recommend using a short host name with as few subdomains as possible, as well as removing the www subdomain whenever possible. You’ll also want to omit a trailing ‘/’ character from the end of the URL if possible. For instance, https://www.example.com/ can be changed to https://example.com. If you do plan to use a subdomain, consider using appclip to define App Clip-specific URLs for App Clip Codes. This special subdomain is compressed efficiently and it allows URLs to have short path and query components by eliminating the possibility of a conflict with an unrelated functionality of your website. While adding this subdomain is optional, if you do opt to use it, it must appear as the first subdomain of the URL’s host, like so: https://appclip.example.com. Optimize for compression Consider using the minimum number of characters needed to uniquely identify a resource in your URLs, as long UUIDs will lower the effectiveness of the compression. In addition, replace long query string argument names and values with short names and values to aid in compression. For example, you can turn argument names into shorter names and values into an enum, like so: https://example.com/?status=view could be restructured as https://example.com/?p=0. Using decimal numbers as query parameter values may also lead to better compression of the URL. Choose your words carefully App Clip Codes offer more effective URL encoding for certain words in the URL path component, like account, app, download, shop, upload, visit, and more. Consider using these whenever possible to improve your encoding and compression. You can view the full list of words within Apple’s documentation. Encoding a URL in an App Clip Code In addition, a URL that contains zero or one path component from the list of special words and contains zero or more query components with ordered argument names p, p1, p2, and the like has a higher likelihood of fitting in an App Clip Code. Some examples: https://appclip.example.com/shop https://appclip.example.com/shop?p=123 https://appclip.example.com/?p=123 https://appclip.example.com/?p=123&p1=4632 Resources Creating App Clip Codes with App Store Connect Creating App Clip Codes with the App Clip Code Generator WWDC20 Explore App Clips Help people experience the right parts of your app at the exact moment they need them. We’ll explain how to design and build an App Clip — a small part of your app that focuses on a specific task — and make it easily discoverable. Learn how to focus your App Clip on short and fast... WWDC20 Configure and link your App Clips App Clips are small parts of an app that offer a streamlined, direct experience and help people get what they need at the right time. Learn how you can invoke an App Clip through real-world experiences like App Clip Codes, NFC, and QR codes, or have them appear digitally through apps like Maps or...

  • App Store Connect holiday schedule

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 09 Dec 2020 13:02:12 PST

    As a reminder, new apps and app updates will not be accepted December 23 through 27 (Pacific Time). Please ensure time for your releases to be scheduled, submitted, and approved in advance so you’ll be ready for the busiest season on the App Store. Other App Store Connect and developer account features will remain available.

  • Reminder: App privacy questions requirement starts December 8

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 04 Dec 2020 16:58:35 PST

    The App Store will soon help users understand an app’s privacy practices before they download the app on any Apple platform. On each app’s product page, users can learn about some of the data types the app may collect, and whether that data is linked to them or used to track them. If you haven’t already, enter your app’s privacy information in App Store Connect. This information will be required to submit new apps and app updates to the App Store starting December 8, 2020. Existing apps will remain available for download. Learn more about the details you’ll need to provide Learn how to provide app privacy information in App Store Connect

  • Sales and Trends now includes subscription offer code data

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 04 Dec 2020 08:34:16 PST

    Now you can better understand your subscription offer code performance with Sales and Trends dashboards and reports in App Store Connect. Offer code data appears in version 1_3 of the Subscription, Subscription Event, and Subscriber reports, and version 1_1 of the Summary Sales Report. Learn how to view offer code data

  • Family Sharing for in-app purchases now available

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 04 Dec 2020 08:26:38 PST

    You can now enable Family Sharing for auto-renewable subscriptions and non-consumable in-app purchases, allowing users to share their purchases with up to five family members. Family Sharing provides a streamlined, convenient user experience and can help you attract subscribers, encourage paid subscriptions, increase user engagement, and improve retention. Sales and Trends reports will be updated soon to help you understand the performance of family subscriptions. Learn how to enable Family Sharing

  • Enroll in the new App Store Small Business Program

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 03 Dec 2020 12:57:20 PST

    Enrollment is now open for the new App Store Small Business Program, designed to accelerate innovation and help propel your small business forward. Featuring a reduced commission rate of 15% on paid apps and in-app purchases, this program helps you invest more resources into your business so you can continue building great apps. The vast majority of developers on the App Store who sell digital goods and services are eligible — simply complete a short enrollment form. Learn more about the program

  • Mac instances for EC2 now available from Amazon Web Services

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 01 Dec 2020 08:52:33 PST

    Developing for Apple platforms is now accessible with a new service that combines the performance and reliability of our world-class hardware with the scalability of Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud, now includes EC2 Mac instances. For the first time, you can easily set up and deploy macOS workloads natively within AWS, and take advantage of its flexibility and scalability to add more compute capacity. EC2 Mac instances in the cloud make it easy to create more builds, run more tests, and further automate your development processes by seamlessly provisioning and accessing macOS compute environments with just a few clicks. Learn more

  • Congratulations to the Best of 2020 winners

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 01 Dec 2020 08:37:02 PST

    Every year, the App Store celebrates exceptional apps that improve people’s lives while showcasing the highest levels of quality and impact. These award-winning apps and games, created by innovative developers, helped us connect, stay well, and find joy in 2020. See this year’s selections

  • Source App ID and Conversion Value now available in SKAdNetwork 2.0

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:01:47 PST

    The SKAdNetwork API helps advertising networks measure the success of ad campaigns for your app while maintaining user privacy. With SKAdNetwork 2.0, networks can use Source App ID to identify which app initiated a download from the App Store. And Conversion Value lets them know whether users who installed your app through a campaign performed an action in your app, such as signing up for a free trial or completing a purchase. This information is made available only if it cannot be used to identify individual users. Learn more about SKAdNetwork

  • App privacy questions requirement starts December 8

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 24 Nov 2020 16:58:35 PST

    The App Store will soon help users understand an app’s privacy practices before they download the app on any Apple platform. On each app’s product page, users can learn about some of the data types the app may collect, and whether that data is linked to them or used to track them. If you haven’t already, enter your app’s privacy information in App Store Connect. As a reminder, this information will be required to submit new apps and app updates to the App Store starting December 8, 2020. Existing apps will remain available for download. Learn more about the details you’ll need to provide Learn how to provide app privacy information in App Store Connect

  • Deadline extended for online group event in-app purchase requirement

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 23 Nov 2020 18:35:06 PST

    As the world fights COVID-19, we recognize that adapting experiences from in-person to digital continues to be a top priority. Although apps are required to offer any paid online group event experiences (one-to-few and one-to-many realtime experiences) through in-app purchase in accordance with App Store Review guideline 3.1.1, we temporarily deferred this requirement with an original deadline of December 2020. To allow additional time for developing in-app purchase solutions, this deadline has been extended to June 30, 2021. Please note that guideline 3.1.3(d) allows apps offering realtime person-to-person experiences between two individuals (for example, tutoring students, medical consultations, real estate tours, or fitness training) to use purchase methods other than in-app purchase.

  • App Store Connect holiday schedule

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 23 Nov 2020 16:56:12 PST

    The busiest season on the App Store is almost here. Make sure your apps are up to date and ready for the holidays, as new apps and app updates will not be accepted December 23 through 27 (Pacific Time). Please ensure time for your releases to be scheduled, submitted, and approved in advance. Other App Store Connect and developer account features will remain available.

  • Market your subscriptions with offer codes

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 19 Nov 2020 08:45:12 PST

    You can now create and distribute subscription offer codes for your apps, giving you new ways to market your subscription. These one-time use, alphanumeric codes can be redeemed on the App Store or within your app. You can also create unique URLs associated with an offer code and distribute these using your choice of channels. Offer codes can help you acquire, retain, and win back people by letting them experience your subscription at a free or discounted price for a specific duration. At the end of the offer period, the subscription auto-renews at the standard price unless a subscriber cancels it or turns off auto-renewal. Offer codes can be used in a variety of ways. For example, you can: Send an email sharing the latest features, recently added content, and an offer code to current or lapsed subscribers so they can experience your service for a limited time. Distribute flyers that include unique offer codes to promote your service to event attendees. Partner with another company on a marketing initiative or campaign to help promote your app. Provide an offer code to a subscriber with a customer service issue to compensate for the issue and encourage retention. Distribute offer codes within an app that you are sunsetting as a way to transition subscribers to your new app and promote your service. You can provide multiple types of offers to people depending on your business goals. To determine which type might be best for a particular use case, consider each offer’s intended use, customer eligibility, redemption limits, and other criteria. Learn more about providing subscription offers Configure and create offer codes You can create new offer codes within App Store Connect. When you set up a new code, you’ll also need to determine customer eligibility: Is this for a new, existing, or expired subscriber? If creating a code for a new subscriber, you’ll also want to decide whether the code is valid in addition to any introductory offers you may provide within your app. As with other subscription offers in your app, you can choose whether the offer is free, pay as you go, or pay up front. You can configure offer codes in App Store Connect. In the offer codes section, you can see your active and inactive offers, as well as the number of codes you have available to create. After you’ve configured your offer, you can create and download codes. You can create up to 150,000 new codes every quarter per app. Note: Codes expire a maximum of six months from their creation date, so be mindful of how many codes you create at a given time to ensure you have enough valid codes to last the duration of your campaign. Once you’ve downloaded your codes, you can use the URL in App Store Connect and create associated one-time code redemption URLs. You’ll need to copy the URL from your offer details page, then add the specific code to the end of the URL, like so: https://apps.apple.com/redeem?id=YourAppAppleID&code=OfferCode Customers can redeem only one code per active offer, but may be eligible to redeem multiple different offer codes for a single subscription, depending on your configuration choices. Before creating any offer codes, be sure to set up your server to validate receipts so you can properly entitle service. You can also enable App Store server notifications to understand subscription updates and status changes in real-time. Learn more about setting up offer codes Distribute offer codes You can distribute offer codes however you choose. Consider which channels might be most effective at reaching your intended customers. For example, you might distribute code redemption URLs in digital marketing channels such as your email distribution lists or text messages. You might share printed offer codes at events or even alongside the purchase of a physical product. When distributing offer codes, make sure to note any eligibility or availability limits, as well as the code’s expiration date. If sharing offer codes with existing customers, make sure the offer is for a subscription within the same subscription group as their existing subscription. Learn more about subscription groups Redeem offer codes In order for customers to redeem an offer code, your app must be in the Ready for Sale state in App Store Connect. Customers on iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 and later can redeem offer codes by entering them in the “Redeem Gift Card or Code” page in their App Store account settings, or directly within your app if you’ve implemented the presentCodeRedemptionSheet API. Additionally, if you’ve created and shared one-time code redemption URLs, customers can redeem offer codes using that link. presentCodeRedemptionSheet() Apple handles the redemption experience, which includes an offer details screen with the app icon, subscription display name, duration, and pricing; if you’ve previously added a promotional in-app purchase image for the subscription, this is shown instead of your app icon. You can customize each of these details within App Store Connect. To help people make an informed decision, make sure that they clearly describe your subscription. If a customer attempts to redeem your code but does not have your app installed, they’ll be able to download it during the redemption experience. After tapping a custom redeem button within your app, the system automatically provides a series of code-redemption screens like the ones shown. If using one-time code redemption URLs, customers won’t need to enter the code as part of the redemption process. If you choose to support in-app redemption, consider adding a way to enter an offer code during relevant moments in the user experience — for example, adding a “Redeem Code” link on your subscription’s paywall screen, or in your app’s settings screen. Once a user redeems an offer, provide a relevant experience based on their subscription state. For example, for a first-time subscriber, you might highlight the benefits of your subscription and provide onboarding. If your app includes account creation or requires agreement to additional terms, make this process as smooth as possible for customers who redeemed a code and are new to your app. Resources Learn more about providing subscription offers Learn more about designing subscriptions Implementing Offer Codes in Your App

  • Announcing the App Store Small Business Program

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 18 Nov 2020 06:46:05 PST

    We believe that small businesses are the backbone of our global economy and the beating heart of innovation and opportunity in communities around the world. Launching January 1, 2021, the industry-leading new App Store Small Business Program is designed to accelerate innovation and help propel your small business forward. The program has a reduced commission rate of 15% on paid apps and in-app purchases, so you can invest more resources into your business and continue building the kind of quality apps your customers love. The vast majority of developers on the App Store who sell digital goods and services will qualify for the Small Business Program. Existing developers who made up to $1 million in proceeds in 2020 for all their apps, as well as developers new to the App Store, can qualify for the program and the reduced commission. If a participating developer surpasses the $1 million threshold, the standard commission rate will apply for the remainder of the year. If a developer’s business falls below the $1 million threshold in a future calendar year, they can re-qualify for the 15% commission the year after. Stay tuned for additional details in early December.

  • Subscription offer codes now available

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 17 Nov 2020 10:51:46 PST

    You can now create subscription offer codes to acquire, retain, and win back subscribers. Offer codes are unique, alphanumeric codes that provide auto-renewable subscriptions at a discounted price or for free for a specific duration. Provide your one-time use codes digitally or offline at physical events, alongside products, and more. Users on iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 and later can redeem offer codes on the App Store through a one-time code redemption URL, or within your app if you’ve implemented the presentCodeRedemptionSheet API. Sales and Trends reports will be updated later this year to include information on the performance of your subscription offer codes. Learn more about subscription offer codes

  • New features available in Transporter 1.2

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 16 Nov 2020 16:44:37 PST

    You can now use Transporter for Mac to upload metadata, view a history of delivered builds for each app version, and filter that history by time period. This latest version also includes support for 29 additional languages. View on the Mac App Store

  • iPhone and iPad apps are coming to Mac

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 11 Nov 2020 15:25:05 PST

    As announced at WWDC20, we’re excited to bring iPhone and iPad apps to the Mac App Store on Apple silicon Macs — so your apps can reach even more users worldwide. By default, your apps will be published automatically on the Mac App Store. To make sure that Mac users have a great experience, confirm that your apps work well on this platform and don’t rely on iPhone or iPad features not available on Mac. If needed, update their availability on Mac in App Store Connect. Learn more

  • Submit your Mac apps to the Mac App Store

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 10 Nov 2020 15:19:00 PST

    Submit your apps built for macOS Big Sur today. You can submit Universal apps built with Xcode 12.2 that take full advantage of Apple silicon Macs. Your apps will look better than ever on macOS Big Sur, thanks to an all-new interface that’s been finely tuned for the powerful features that make a Mac a Mac. New widget features and the new widget gallery can make your app visible at a glance. And much more. Build your apps with Xcode 12.2 Release Candidate, update your product pages, and submit your apps for review today. Learn more

  • Custom apps for Mac now supported

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 10 Nov 2020 15:06:58 PST

    Custom apps let you meet the unique needs of organizations and schools. And now, you can distribute custom Mac apps. Provide a tailored look and feel, security features for sensitive data, special functionality for workflows, and much more, then distribute privately on Apple Business Manager or Apple School Manager. Learn more about creating custom apps

  • App privacy questions available in App Store Connect

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 05 Nov 2020 14:26:24 PST

    Later this year, the App Store will help users understand an app’s privacy practices before they download the app on any Apple platform. On each app’s product page, users can learn about some of the data types the app may collect, and whether that data is linked to them or used to track them. You can now enter your app’s privacy information in App Store Connect. This information will be required to submit new apps and app updates to the App Store starting December 8, 2020. Learn more about the details you’ll need to provide Learn how to provide app privacy information in App Store Connect

  • Don’t miss the upcoming special Apple Event

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 04 Nov 2020 07:27:51 PST

    Please join us a for a special Apple Event broadcasting from Apple Park on November 10 at 10:00 a.m. PST. Watch the show online at apple.com. Learn more

  • New subscription server notifications available in production

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 29 Oct 2020 11:29:18 PDT

    App Store server notifications provide real-time updates on a subscriber’s status, so you can create customized user experiences. The following new notifications are now available in production: DID_RENEW lets you know when a subscriber successfully auto-renews. PRICE_INCREASE_CONSENT lets you know when the App Store starts asking users to agree to your subscription’s new price, so you can remind them of your service’s value as encouragement to stay subscribed. In addition, the following will be deprecated in production in March 2021: RENEWAL notifications and these top-level objects: latest_receipt, latest_receipt_info, latest_expired_receipt, and latest_expired_receipt_info. Update your code to continue providing a seamless user experience. Learn more about App Store server notifications

  • Use SF Symbols to enhance your interface design

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 29 Oct 2020 07:00:41 PDT

    Symbols are visual guides that help us navigate experiences without words. Whether people are viewing an image on a road sign or an icon within your app, people count on familiar, easy-to-understand symbols to provide contextual information and help them find their way. SF Symbols provides designers and developers with consistent and customizable symbols that seamlessly integrate with the system font, San Francisco. These symbols are a great resource whether you’re a veteran designer or working primarily in Xcode. The library removes the need to reimagine, resize, and reinvent graphic assets, providing a flexible range of weights and scales and automatic vertical alignment when adapting interfaces to different screen sizes. Find the right symbol With more than 2,400 symbols — each available in nine weights and three scales — SF Symbols offers a large variety of options to suit your needs. You can easily browse or quickly search for and copy any of the vector-based icons from the SF Symbols app and paste them inside popular apps like Sketch, Adobe XD, or Figma, where they automatically align with text. Use the SF Symbols app to browse and preview selections before placing them in your project. Many symbols exist in both outline and filled variants which can be used in different contexts. Outlined symbols feature similar characteristics to text, whereas filled symbols provide additional contrast and emphasis. Tip: When it comes to symbol styles, less is more. Try to stick with a single style to help unify your design within a particular component or context. Aim for symbols that achieve immediate recognition; go for design clarity over creativity. What message do you want that symbol to convey? Would someone new to your app be familiar with it? If not, is there a different symbol that is more in tune with what someone might expect from this icon? Design custom symbols If you need to create a custom symbol for your app, the SF Symbols app can help you get started. Search for a symbol that’s similar to what you want to represent, then export it as customizable, vector-based template. Using a vector editing tool like Illustrator or Sketch, make the changes you need while maintaining a consistent scale and weight to the symbol you’re modifying. Strive to create a symbol that is simple, recognizable, and clearly relates to the action or content it represents. Be mindful of how the SVG layer tree is named and organized; custom symbols must match the structure of the original file. Creating custom symbol images for your app Design with SF Symbols Working solo or in collaboration, designers and developers will appreciate the simplicity and adaptability of SF Symbols. You can use SF Symbols in apps running in iOS 13 and later, watchOS 6 and later, and tvOS 13 and later, and you’ll be able to use SF Symbols on macOS Big Sur this fall. Resources WWDC19 Introducing SF Symbols SF Symbols introduces a comprehensive library of vector-based symbols that you can incorporate into your app to simplify the layout of user interface elements through automatic alignment with surrounding text, and support for multiple weights and sizes. Learn how easy it is to adapt to different... WWDC20 SF Symbols 2 SF Symbols make it easy to adopt high-quality, Apple-designed symbols created to look great with San Francisco, the system font for all Apple platforms. Discover how you can use SF Symbols in AppKit, UIKit, and SwiftUI. Learn how to work with SF Symbols in common design tools and how to use them in... Learn more about SF Symbols Introduction to Uniform Type Identifiers Download SF Symbols

  • Upcoming tax and price changes for apps and in-app purchases

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 26 Oct 2020 12:39:59 PDT

    When taxes or foreign exchange rates change, we sometimes need to update prices on the App Store. In the next few days, prices of apps and in-app purchases (excluding auto-renewable subscriptions) on the App Store will increase in Brazil, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Russia, and South Africa. These increases also reflect the following tax changes: India: New equalization levy of 2% (in addition to the existing goods and services tax of 18%) Indonesia: New value-added tax of 10% for developers based outside of Indonesia Prices of apps and in-app purchases (excluding auto-renewable subscriptions) will also be adjusted in Iceland and Albania to align with pricing used in other markets selling in U.S. dollars with value-added tax. You can download the updated price tier charts now. Once these changes go into effect, the Pricing and Availability section of My Apps will be updated, and your proceeds will be adjusted accordingly and calculated based on the tax-exclusive price. You can change the price of your apps and in-app purchases (including auto-renewable subscriptions) at any time in App Store Connect. If you offer subscriptions, you can choose to preserve prices for existing subscribers.

  • Apple Entrepreneur Camp applications open for Black founders and developers

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 19 Oct 2020 14:17:58 PDT

    Apple Entrepreneur Camp supports underrepresented founders and developers as they build the next generation of cutting-edge apps and helps form a global network that encourages the pipeline and longevity of these entrepreneurs in technology. Applications are now open for the first cohort for Black founders and developers, which runs online from February 16 to 25, 2021. Attendees receive code-level guidance, mentorship, and inspiration with unprecedented access to Apple engineers and leaders. Applications close on November 20, 2020. Learn more about Apple Entrepreneur Camp Learn about some of our inspiring alumni

  • Offer your apps for pre-order even earlier

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:58:07 PDT

    Now you can let customers pre-order your app up to 180 days before it’s released for download on the App Store. Take advantage of this longer lead time to build more excitement for your app’s features, services, and content, and to encourage more pre-orders. Once your app is released, customers will be notified and it will automatically download to their device within 24 hours. Learn more about pre-orders

  • Build AR experiences for iPhone and iPad

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 13 Oct 2020 08:00:37 PDT

    Discover how you can create unparalleled augmented reality experiences within your apps and games on iOS and iPadOS. We’ll show you how to work with powerful frameworks like ARKit and RealityKit, bring your AR scenes to life with creative tools like Reality Composer and Reality Converter, and take advantage of LiDAR Scanner depth data. Explore the LiDAR Scanner for iPhone and iPad Discover how you can take advantage of the LiDAR Scanner on iPhone and iPad to create AR experiences that interact with real-world objects. When you pair the LiDAR Scanner with the ARKit and RealityKit frameworks in your app, you can instantly place AR objects in the real world without scanning and take advantage of depth information to create experiences with real-world physics, object occlusion, and lighting effects. Tech Talks Advanced Scene Understanding in AR ARKit 3.5 and RealityKit provide new capabilities that take full advantage of the LiDAR Scanner on the new iPad Pro. Check out ARKit 3.5 and learn about Scene Geometry, enhanced raycasting, instantaneous virtual object placement, and more. See how RealityKit takes advantage of these features to... Visualizing and Interacting with a Reconstructed Scene Creating a Fog Effect Using Scene Depth Displaying a Point Cloud Using Scene Depth Creating a Game with SceneUnderstanding Discover ARKit and RealityKit ARKit 4 enables you to build the next generation of augmented reality apps to transform how people connect with the world around them, while RealityKit is Apple's rendering, animation, physics, and audio engine built from the ground up for augmented reality. Both frameworks help developers prototype and produce high-quality AR experiences. Explore an overview of each framework to learn more about building a great augmented reality experience for your app or game, including harnessing the LiDAR Scanner on iPhone and iPad, tracking faces for AR, and more. WWDC20 Explore ARKit 4 ARKit 4 enables you to build the next generation of augmented reality apps to transform how people connect with the world around them. We’ll walk you through the latest improvements to Apple’s augmented reality platform, including how to use Location Anchors to connect virtual objects with a... WWDC20 What's new in RealityKit RealityKit is Apple’s rendering, animation, physics, and audio engine built from the ground up for augmented reality: It reimagines the traditional 3D renderer to make it easy for developers to prototype and produce high-quality AR experiences. Learn how to effectively implement each of the... ARKit RealityKit Explore the ARKit Developer Forums Explore the RealityKit Developer Forums Learn more about ARKit and RealityKit LiDAR is only one aspect of developing for augmented reality. Dive deeper into ARKit and RealityKit to discover how you can add new dimensions to retail experiences, or pair these frameworks with Machine Learning and Computer Vision to create even smarter apps or games. WWDC20 Augment reality

  • Updated APNs provider API deadline

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 09 Oct 2020 14:36:39 PDT

    The HTTP/2-based Apple Push Notification service (APNs) provider API lets you take advantage of great features, such as authentication with a JSON Web Token, improved error messaging, and per-notification feedback. If you send push notifications with the legacy binary protocol, we strongly recommend upgrading to the APNs provider API. To give you additional time to prepare, the deadline to upgrade to the APNs provider API has been extended to March 31, 2021. APNs will no longer support the legacy binary protocol after this date. Learn about the APNs provider API

  • Deadline extended for app updates using UIWebView

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 08 Oct 2020 12:32:38 PDT

    Apple designed WKWebView in 2014 to ensure that you can integrate web content into your app quickly, securely, and consistently across iOS and macOS. Since then, we’ve recommended that you adopt WKWebView instead of UIWebView and WebView — both of which were formally deprecated. New apps containing these frameworks are no longer accepted by the App Store. And last year, we announced that the App Store will no longer accept app updates containing UIWebView as of December 2020. However, to provide additional time for you to adopt WKWebView and to ensure that it supports the features most often requested by developers, this deadline for app updates has been extended beyond the end of 2020. We’ll let you know when a new deadline is confirmed. Learn about the latest in WKWebView

  • Apple Developer app updates for the United Kingdom and Ireland

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 08 Oct 2020 11:54:46 PDT

    Now it’s simpler than ever for developers based in the United Kingdom and Ireland to enroll in the Apple Developer Program. The Apple Developer app now supports enrollment in these regions, allowing developers to start and finish their membership purchase with local payment methods on iPhone or iPad. And since membership is provided as an auto-renewable subscription, keeping it active is easy. View on the App Store

  • New subscription server notifications available to test

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 08 Oct 2020 11:48:15 PDT

    App Store server notifications provide real-time updates on a subscriber’s status, so you can create customized user experiences. The following new notifications are now available in the App Store sandbox environment and you can use them in production later this year: DID_RENEW lets you know when a subscriber successfully auto-renews. PRICE_INCREASE_CONSENT lets you know when the App Store starts asking users to agree to your subscription’s new price, so you can remind them of your service’s value as encouragement to stay subscribed. In addition, the following will be deprecated in the App Store sandbox environment in November 2020: RENEWAL notifications and these top-level objects: latest_receipt, latest_receipt_info, latest_expired_receipt, and latest_expired_receipt_info. Update your code to continue providing a seamless user experience. Learn more about App Store server notifications

  • Should I use WKWebView or SFSafariViewController for web views in my app?

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 08 Oct 2020 09:00:20 PDT

    Whether your app needs to provide a full web browsing experience, display richly-styled content, or incorporate external websites without taking people out of your app, you can make the experience smooth and seamless by choosing the right API. You can display web content inside of your app with both the WKWebView and SFSafariViewController APIs. But which is the best for your app’s needs? WKWebView is part of the WebKit framework: It allows you to embed web content into your app as a seamless part of your app’s UI. You can present a full or partial view of web content directly in your app by loading a view that leverages existing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript content or create your own if your layout and styling requirements are better satisfied by using web technologies. Note: If your app uses the deprecated UIWebView API to display web content, you should update your code for improved security, performance, and reliability. Learn more: News Deadline extended for app updates using UIWebView Apple designed WKWebView in 2014 to ensure that you can integrate web content into your app quickly, securely, and consistently across iOS and macOS. Since then, we’ve recommended that you adopt WKWebView instead of UIWebView and WebView — both of which were formally deprecated. New apps... SFSafariViewController is part of the SafariServices framework, and lets your users browse a web page, or a website right inside your app. With it, people can enjoy the same web browsing experience they get in Safari — including features like Password Autofill, Reader, and Secure Browsing — without ever having to leave your app. These two APIs can provide a lot of the heavy lifting for web technologies in your app, though there are a few instances where we recommend alternative frameworks. For example, when presenting a web-based login screen for your app, use ASWebAuthenticationSession to provide people with the most secure experience. When should I use WKWebView? If you need to customize or control the display of web content — or interact with the content itself — WKWebView will be most flexible in helping you build the implementation that suits your needs. (If your app is designed to be used offline, make sure any WKWebView content has appropriate fallbacks and alerts.) Additionally, consider WKWebView if you need to display HTML or CSS content inline or as part of rest of your app’s user interface. The Washington Post’s development team implemented WKWebView to display content from the Washington Post website within their app. In short, WKWebView is an incredibly powerful technology that works in tandem with iOS and macOS frameworks. That said, WKWebView is not designed to outright replace system technologies and frameworks. For example, you should avoid using it in place of device-optimized UIKit classes like UITableView, UIImage, and UIButton, as you lose out on core system behaviors and provide a subpar experience for people who use your app. When should I use SFSafariViewController? When you want display websites inside your app without sending people to Safari, the best tool is SFSafariViewController. By using this API, you can effectively embed the Safari interface — and many of its key features and privacy protections — into your app. The Apple Developer app displays web links through SFSafariViewController. SFSafariViewController is best used when you need to display interactive web experiences on websites you don’t own, or showcase parts of your web content that are generally outside the scope of your app. Resources WKWebView SFSafariViewController

  • New App Store marketing tools available

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 29 Sep 2020 16:23:38 PDT

    Take advantage of new marketing resources to promote your apps around the world. You can now generate short links or embeddable code that lead to your App Store product page and display your app icon, a QR code, or an App Store badge. Download localized App Store badges, your app icon, and more. Learn more

  • Get your education apps ready for Schoolwork 2.1 beta

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 23 Sep 2020 13:41:39 PDT

    The latest version of Schoolwork, the powerful iPad app for teachers and students that helps them keep track of assignments and student progress, is now available. Make sure your app takes advantage of the latest ClassKit features to provide a great user experience. With the new ClassKit Catalog API, you can declare contexts ahead of time instead of at runtime, include keywords, and support a large number of assignable activities. Teachers can browse your app’s activities in Schoolwork before running your app for the first time on their device. Available in beta, this REST API can be tested with Schoolwork 2.1. And on iPadOS 14, ClassKit supports rich new metadata properties to make your content more discoverable by teachers in Schoolwork. Learn more about the ClassKit Catalog API Download Schoolwork 2.1 beta

  • Submit your tvOS apps to the App Store

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 15 Sep 2020 15:13:26 PDT

    With the tvOS 14 SDK, games now have multiuser support and you can offer gamers a wider range of controller and input device options than ever before. You can augment custom video players with Picture in Picture and system-provided controls. And take advantage of new APIs to enhance search features in your apps. Build your tvOS apps using Xcode 12 GM seed, test them on Apple TV running tvOS 14 GM seed, and submit them for review. Learn more

  • Submit your watchOS apps to the App Store

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 15 Sep 2020 15:12:15 PDT

    Deliver even more powerful and personal apps for Apple Watch with the new capabilities of watchOS 7. Brand new APIs and tools, like multiple complications APIs, SwiftUI Complications, and Xcode Previews, make it easier than ever to create unique complications, so users can enjoy your app right on their watch face. And with Face Sharing, people can share their favorite customized faces via Messages, the web, and more. Build your apps using Xcode 12 GM seed, test them on devices running watchOS 7 GM seed, and submit them for review. Starting April 2021, all watchOS apps submitted to the App Store must be built with Xcode 12 and the watchOS 7 SDK. Learn more

  • Submit your iOS and iPadOS apps to the App Store

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 15 Sep 2020 15:10:18 PDT

    Make sure your apps are ready when iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 become available to customers worldwide. Give users a quick way to engage with a part of your app at the right moment with App Clips. Let users experience your app right on their iPhone home screen with new widgets. Bring your ideas to life with new features and more realistic augmented reality experiences using ARKit and RealityKit. And much more. Build your apps using Xcode 12 GM seed, test them on devices running iOS 14 and iPadOS GM seed, and submit them for review. Starting April 2021, all iOS and iPadOS apps submitted to the App Store must be built with Xcode 12 and the iOS 14 SDK. Learn more

  • Support game controllers in your app

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 15 Sep 2020 09:55:52 PDT

    Level up your apps and games with the Game Controller framework and easily build in support for popular console game controllers and MFi accessories on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV. The precise control and tactile feedback provided by a game controller can deepen the player’s sense of immersion and enhance their gameplay experience. And now it’s easier than ever to help players discover which games support controllers. With Xcode 12, you can indicate game controller support right when building your app. By indicating controller support, your App Store product page will display controller badging, and your app will be able to access controller input re-mapping options in Settings. How to add support for game controllers in Xcode 12 To indicate controller support, follow a few simple steps: Open your Xcode project. Navigate to the Signing & Capabilities section of your app target. Add the “Game Controllers” capability in Xcode. Select each of the controller profiles your app or game supports. Game Controllers capability list in Xcode Note: “Extended Gamepad” refers to game controllers featuring physical buttons, triggers, and thumbsticks such as the Steelseries Nimbus, Sony Dualshock 4 Wireless Controller, Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2, and others; and “Micro Gamepad” refers to the controls provided by the Siri Remote for Apple TV. Enable extended gamepad support If you are building your app using an older version of Xcode, you can indicate controller support by editing the info.plist for your app. Set the GCSupportsControllerUserInteraction key to true, then indicate each of the controller profiles your app supports. <key>GCSupportsControllerUserInteraction</key> <true/> <key>GCSupportedGameControllers</key> <array> <dict> <key>ProfileName</key> <string>ExtendedGamepad</string> </dict> </array> Press start The Game Controller framework offers powerful features for your apps across Apple platforms. And with iOS 14, tvOS 14, and macOS Big Sur, your app will also gain support for the Xbox Adaptive Controller and Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2, custom haptics for rumble feedback, and keyboard and mouse input on iPad. For more information, be sure to check out “Advancements in Game Controllers” and “Bring keyboard and mouse gaming to iPad.” Resources WWDC20 Advancements in Game Controllers Let’s rumble! Discover how you can bring third-party game controllers and custom haptics into your games on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV. We’ll show you how to add support for the latest controllers — including Xbox’s Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 and Adaptive Controller — and map... WWDC20 Bring keyboard and mouse gaming to iPad Level up your iPad games and add in keyboard, mouse, and trackpad controls. Discover how to use the Game Controller framework to augment your existing titles, bring over games from other platforms, or dream up entirely new interaction experiences. Learn how to integrate keyboard and “delta”...

  • App Store Review Guideline updates now available

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 11 Sep 2020 11:56:15 PDT

    The App Store is a safe and trusted place for customers to discover and download apps, and a great opportunity for developers. These guideline changes and clarifications support new features in upcoming OS releases, better protect customers, and help your apps go through the review process as smoothly as possible. Updates are noted below. For complete details, see the App Store Review Guidelines. Changes 2.5.16: App Clips, widgets, extensions, and notifications should be related to the content and functionality of your app. Additionally, all App Clip features and functionality must be included in the main app binary. App Clips cannot contain advertising. 3.1.2(a): Games offered in a streaming game service subscription must be downloaded directly from the App Store, must be designed to avoid duplicate payment by a subscriber, and should not disadvantage non-subscriber customers. 3.1.2(a): Apps that offer auto-renewing music and video subscriptions with prior approval by Apple may also be included in pre-defined bundles with cellular data plans offered in cellular carrier apps. 3.1.3(a): Reader apps may offer account creation for free tiers, and account management functionality for existing customers. 3.1.3(d): Person-to-Person Experiences: If your app enables the purchase of realtime person-to-person experiences between two individuals (for example tutoring students, medical consultations, real estate tours, or fitness training), you may use purchase methods other than in-app purchase to collect those payments. One-to-few and one-to-many realtime experiences must use in-app purchase. 3.1.3(f): Free Stand-alone Apps: Free apps acting as a stand-alone companion to a paid web based tool (eg. VOIP, Cloud Storage, Email Services, Web Hosting) do not need to use in-app purchase, provided there is no purchasing inside the app, or calls to action for purchase outside of the app. 3.1.7: Display advertising should be limited to your main app executable, and should not be included in extensions, App Clips, widgets, notifications, keyboards, watchOS apps, etc. 3.2.2(vi): Apps should not require users to rate the app, review the app, watch videos, download other apps, tap on advertisements, enable tracking, or take other similar actions in order to access functionality, content, use the app, or receive monetary or other compensation, including but not limited to gift cards and codes. 3.2.2(x): Apps offering personal loans must clearly and conspicuously disclose all loan terms, including but not limited to equivalent maximum Annual Percentage Rate (APR) and payment due date. Apps may not charge a maximum APR higher than 36%, including costs and fees, and may not require repayment in full in 60 days or less. 4.9: Streaming games Streaming games are permitted so long as they adhere to all guidelines — for example, each game update must be submitted for review, developers must provide appropriate metadata for search, games must use in-app purchase to unlock features or functionality, etc. Of course, there is always the open Internet and web browser apps to reach all users outside of the App Store. 4.9.1: Each streaming game must be submitted to the App Store as an individual app so that it has an App Store product page, appears in charts and search, has user ratings and review, can be managed with ScreenTime and other parental control apps, appears on the user’s device, etc. 4.9.2: Streaming game services may offer a catalog app on the App Store to help users sign up for the service and find the games on the App Store, provided that the app adheres to all guidelines, including offering users the option to pay for a subscription with in-app purchase and use Sign in with Apple. All the games included in the catalog app must link to an individual App Store product page. After You Submit: If you still disagree with the outcome, or would like to suggest a change to the guideline itself, please submit an appeal. Bug Fix Submissions: For apps that are already on the App Store, bug fixes will no longer be delayed over guideline violations except for those related to legal issues. If your app has been rejected, and qualifies for this process, please use the Resolution Center to communicate directly with the App Review team indicating that you would like to take advantage of this process and plan to address the issue in your next submission. Clarifications 2.3.1: Don’t include any hidden, dormant, or undocumented features in your app; your app’s functionality should be clear to end users and App Review. 2.3.1: All new features, functionality, and product changes must be described with specificity in the Notes for Review section of App Store Connect (generic descriptions will be rejected) and accessible for review. 2.3.7: Choose a unique app name, assign keywords that accurately describe your app, and don’t try to pack any of your metadata with trademarked terms, popular app names, pricing information, or other irrelevant phrases just to game the system. 3.1.3: Other Purchase Methods: The following apps may use purchase methods other than in-app purchase. Apps in this section cannot, either within the app or through communications sent to points of contact obtained from account registration within the app (like email or text), encourage users to use a purchasing method other than in-app purchase. 3.1.3(c): Enterprise Services: If your app is only sold directly by you to organizations or groups for their employees or students (for example professional databases and classroom management tools), you may use purchase methods in addition to in-app purchase to collect those payments. Consumer, single user, or family sales must use in-app purchase. 3.1.3(e): Former 3.1.5(a) renumbered. 3.1.3(b): Multiplatform Services: Apps that operate across multiple platforms may allow users to access content, subscriptions, or features they have acquired in your app on other platforms or your web site, including consumable items in multi-platform games, provided those items are also available as in-app purchases within the app. 3.1.5: Former 3.1.5(b) renumbered. 4.5.2(i): MusicKit on iOS lets users play Apple Music and their local music library natively from your apps and games. When a user provides permission to their Apple Music account, your app can create playlists, add songs to their library, and play any of the millions of songs in the Apple Music catalog. 5.1.2(vi): Data gathered from the HomeKit API, HealthKit, Clinical Health Records API, MovementDisorder APIs, ClassKit or from depth and/or facial mapping tools (e.g. ARKit, Camera APIs, or Photo APIs) may not be used for marketing, advertising or use-based data mining, including by third parties. Learn more about best practices for implementing CallKit, HealthKit, ClassKit, and ARKit. Read the App Store Review Guidelines

  • Enhancements to sandbox testing now available

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 09 Sep 2020 16:22:32 PDT

    The Apple sandbox environment lets you test in-app purchases on devices using product information set up in App Store Connect. You can now test upgrades, downgrades, and cancellations for subscriptions, as well as reset the introductory offer eligibility for a test account from Settings on devices running iOS 14 or later. You can also test your app’s response to interrupted purchases on devices running iOS 14 or later. And App Store Connect users with the Developer role can now create and manage sandbox tester accounts. Learn about testing in-app purchases in sandbox Learn about testing at all stages of development

  • What’s new in CryptoKit

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 08 Sep 2020 08:00:43 PDT

    People expect apps to be secure and their data to be protected. You may need to perform cryptographic operations to implement features such as authentication, message encryption, or to meet regulatory requirements. CryptoKit is a Swift framework that makes it easier and safer to perform common cryptographic operations, whether you simply need to compute a hash or are implementing a more advanced authentication protocol. This year, CryptoKit adds new APIs for HMAC-based Extract-and-Expand Key Derivation Functions (HKDF), support for PEM and DER formats, and with Swift Crypto your code can now run everywhere Swift runs. HKDF Key derivation functions allow you to derive one or more secrets of the size of your choice from a master key or passcode. Starting in iOS 14, you can now use standalone APIs for HKDF. Integrate the easy to use one-shot variant for quick tasks such as deriving multiple keys from a master secret, or the two-step extract and expand API with fine-grained control over the key derivation process. In prior versions of iOS, HKDF was supported only when deriving a symmetric key from an elliptic curve key agreement protocol. HKDF PEM and DER formats for encoding elliptic curve keys PEM and DER formats are now supported directly in CryptoKit. You can now directly pass a PEM string or DER-encoded data to initialize CryptoKit public and private keys, without using another library to perform the conversion. Portability With Swift Crypto you can create cross-platform solutions using the CryptoKit APIs on all platforms that Swift supports, including Linux and servers. Portability is important when you need to run the same code on your client and server, such as supporting two-factor authentication using a One-Time Password. Resources Introducing Swift Crypto Watch “Cryptography in Swift” from dotSwift 2020

  • Details for app privacy questions now available

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 03 Sep 2020 18:47:54 PDT

    At Apple, we believe that privacy is a fundamental human right. As announced at WWDC20, App Store product pages will feature a new privacy information section to help users understand an app’s privacy practices. Today we are publishing more details for developers on what will be covered in this new privacy section. By the end of next month, you will be able to submit your information via App Store Connect to prepare for this feature rolling out to users by the end of the year. Learn more about providing app privacy information In addition, on iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and tvOS 14, apps will be required to receive user permission to track users across apps or websites owned by other companies, or to access the device’s advertising identifier. We are committed to ensuring users can choose whether or not they allow an app to track them. To give developers time to make necessary changes, apps will be required to obtain permission to track users starting early next year. More information, including an update to the App Store Review Guidelines, will follow this fall. Learn more about asking permission to track

  • Get ready for subscription offer codes

    Apple Developer News · Wed, 02 Sep 2020 15:10:58 PDT

    Later this year, you’ll be able to acquire, retain, and win back subscribers with subscription offer codes: unique, alphanumeric codes that provide free or discounted prices for auto-renewable subscriptions. Provide your one-time use codes digitally or offline at physical events, alongside products, and more. Customers on iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 and later can redeem offer codes on the App Store, through a one-time code redemption URL, or within your app if you’ve implemented the presentCodeRedemptionSheet API. Learn more about subscription offer codes

  • Upcoming tax and price changes for apps and in-app purchases

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 01 Sep 2020 10:20:20 PDT

    When taxes or foreign exchange rates change, we sometimes need to update prices on the App Store. In the next few days, prices of apps and in-app purchases (excluding auto-renewable subscriptions) on the App Store will increase in response to tax changes in Chile, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Your proceeds will be adjusted accordingly and will be calculated based on the tax-exclusive price. Chile: New value-added tax of 19% Mexico: New value-added tax of 16% Saudi Arabia: Increase in value-added tax from 5% to 15% Turkey: New digital services tax of 7.5% (in addition to the existing value-added tax of 18%) In addition, your proceeds will also be adjusted in Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom, and will be calculated based on the tax-exclusive price. However, prices on the App Store will not change. Germany: Reduced value-added tax rate from 19% to 16% (effective July 2020) France: New digital services tax of 3% (in addition to the existing value-added tax of 20%) Italy: New digital services tax of 3% (in addition to the existing value-added tax of 22%) United Kingdom: New digital services tax of 2% (in addition to the existing value-added tax of 20%) Note that Apple will automatically issue refunds on a monthly basis to customers in Germany (effective July 2020) with auto-renewable subscriptions to account for the tax reduction. These refunds will not affect your proceeds. You can download the updated price tier charts now. Once these changes go into effect, the Pricing and Availability section of My Apps will be updated. You can change the price of your apps and in-app purchases (including auto-renewable subscriptions) at any time in App Store Connect. If you offer subscriptions, you can choose to preserve prices for existing subscribers.

  • App Review process updates

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 31 Aug 2020 17:46:34 PDT

    The App Store is dedicated to providing a great experience for everyone. To continue offering a safe place for users to download apps and helping you successfully develop apps that are secure, high-quality, reliable, and respectful of user privacy, we’ve updated the app review process as announced at WWDC20. For apps that are already on the App Store, bug fixes will no longer be delayed over guideline violations except for those related to legal issues. You’ll instead be able to address guideline violations in your next submission. And now, in addition to appealing decisions about whether an app violates guidelines, you can suggest changes to the guidelines. We also encourage you to submit your App Store and Apple development platform suggestions so we can continue to improve experiences for the developer community. Submit an App Store or platform suggestion

  • WWDC20 video subtitles now in more languages

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 31 Aug 2020 16:18:25 PDT

    You can now watch the Special Event Keynote, Platforms State of the Union, and over 200 sessions from this year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference with Japanese and Simplified Chinese subtitles. Available on the web, iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV. View WWDC20 videos

  • Easily create web extensions for Safari

    Apple Developer News · Thu, 27 Aug 2020 13:23:22 PDT

    Safari Web Extensions can add custom functionality to Safari 14 beta using the same WebExtensions API used in other browsers, such as Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. And with a new conversion tool in Xcode 12 beta, you can quickly bring your existing extensions to Safari and make them available on the Mac App Store this fall. Learn more about the WebExtensions API

  • Behind the Design: Song of Bloom

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 21 Aug 2020 08:40:22 PDT

    When designing games, Philipp Stollenmayer has a confession to make. “I’m easily bored,” he says. “And I just don't want the player to be bored when I am.” The German developer’s aversion to monotony has fueled a prolific number of creative and off-kilter titles over the years, including Sometimes You Die, Sticky Terms, and Bacon — The Game. 2019’s Song of Bloom goes further still. The Apple Design Award-winning puzzle game is enigmatic and ever-shifting, with a series of layered and intertwined levels that invite people to tap, shake, draw, and explore their device. Song of Bloom’s puzzles range in style, design, and execution. “It's an abstract game [that develops] into something more understandable with time,” says Stollenmayer. “The more you get in the story, the more you discover and the more the interaction changes.” This concept is a core part of his philosophy around game design: create an instantly graspable idea, then keep thinking, pushing, and inviting players go further. There’s no true ‘goal’ beyond the exploration of the narrative and the puzzles — in Stollenmayer’s words, the game is “user experience in its truest form.” Song of Bloom grew from one of Stollenmayer’s vacation experiments. Having taken a looping video of waves on the beach while in Italy, he decided to try and add a new aspect to it with device rotation: when the video flipped, the water would fall out of frame. From there, “it just became a process of triggering new ideas and new experiments,” he says. The milk carton from Song of Bloom, made real. Unlike Stollenmayer’s other games, nothing is constant in Song of Bloom. “Not the elements, not the interaction, and not even remotely the style,” he says. One puzzle might look like a rough sketch, while others include hyper-realistic popcorn kernels. His favorite puzzle of the series? A stop-motion risograph-inspired milk carton. There is always this doubt in the back of the mind if what you are seeing is real. This contributes a lot to the mood I am trying to convey. Philipp Stollenmayer Every image in Song of Bloom is computer-generated, the result of experimenting with code — sometimes with unintended results. “As a designer who isn’t the greatest programmer, my code usually creates visual errors,” says Stollenmayer. “On the way, I would let myself [be inspired] by my own faults.” That included manipulating items to make them look more like how they might in a real-world setting. For example, one puzzle, which requires someone to virtually knit an item, includes the sort of stray holes and tiny offshoots that you might expect from a newer knitter. “Making digital versions without these faults is much easier,” Stollenmayer says. “But copying the faults creates moments where you ask yourself: Could this be real?” He drew inspiration from immersive installations and puzzle games alike, including multimedia artists Laure Prouvost and Franz West and games like Blackbox, Device6, and Prune. “I look at a lot of art to get a sense for color, composition — but also how to control and transform surroundings,” he says. I am interested in the between, where it all comes together, because in our world, nothing exists without context. Philipp Stollenmayer Each visual, haptic, motion, and verbal cue within the game is designed to get the player to explore that space and interact with its imagery. Because the puzzles are often highly abstracted, Stollenmayer used haptics to help guide people through the game — using them to signify mood in higher- or lower-stakes scenes or aid someone in evaluating potential solves. “Like in the real world, the player expects a reaction from every action,” Stollenmayer says. One of his earliest concepts for transitioning between puzzles in Song of Bloom was that of someone blinking their eyes: Solve the puzzle or move to the main screen, and the entire screen blinks in and out. Stollenmayer experimented with several multitouch gestures around that concept, including a pinch gesture, before settling on a button — a single curved line — in the corner. “I had to get it into the player’s mind,” he says. That meant creating something easily findable and understandable, and not adding gestures that might get triggered by chance during the exploration of a puzzle. That thin curved line is one of the only pieces of consistent, persistent interface amidst Song of Bloom’s many artistic changes. “Like the home bar on full screen iPhones, it’s just there to remind you that [it] exists, without disturbing the running scene with any content or contrasting style,” Stollenmayer says. Stollenmayer with an early version of the Song of Bloom tree. On tap, it allows people to return to the game’s main screen and view the branching tree of puzzles they’ve helped grow. This tree also serves as the game’s sole hint mechanism, letting people use long presses to peek at possible areas to focus on within the game. The more you play around with it, the more the story (and tree) grows and the more hints you discover. Along with original music, it’s this fertile combination of forces that earns the game its name. With so many different art styles and creative influences, it’s amazing how effortlessly they all blend together in Song of Bloom. The story is important, of course, but for Philipp design is really about how it feels. Call Song of Bloom what you will — a game of personal discovery, a provocative tale of art and clues — for Philipp Stollenmayer, the goal is simply to play; to make people feel at once captivated and liberated all in the same hour-long session. In Song of Bloom, you just play for the sake of playing. And this is what I was trying to achieve — to help the player get lost in his own interpretation. Philipp Stollenmayer Learn more about Song of Bloom Learn more about Song of Bloom on the App Store Download Song of Bloom

  • Behind the Design: Sayonara Wild Hearts

    Apple Developer News · Fri, 07 Aug 2020 08:40:07 PDT

    Art can reflect emotions we can’t process in spoken word alone: Paintings capture these feelings in color and scale, films reflect our world back to us through new light, and music puts melody to the words we don’t know how to — or cannot — say. The road of relationships is particularly well-traveled where art is concerned. Sayonara Wild Hearts, however, uses the approachability of the topic and transforms it into an exploration on lost love, finding independence, and moving on. Ever-shifting gameplay and an electrifying beat capture the stages of reflecting on a broken relationship, illuminated by a psychedelic canvas of bright rainbow colors and geometric shapes. “This is a game that is very much about the music,” says Simon Flesser, who along with his co-founder Gordon Gardebäck makes up the game company Simogo. While the two have often created playlists of brainstorm music and scoring for their games, the conceit for Sayonara was unique: What if you could take the ubiquity of the breakup album and make it interactive through the best tropes of 80s and 90s arcade games? “We wanted everything in the game to echo that sense of approachability,” Flesser says. “[And] we naturally fell into the idea of wanting to make something that felt like the arcade games we great up with and played when we were young.” Games like Star Fox provided inspiration for the team, as did the musical integration through titles like Rez. “We [also] often try to find inspiration in things we don’t necessarily like, but see the potential in,” Flesser says. “We looked at games that use video a lot… where those game fail in interactivity, they really succeed in spectacle. So we wanted to try and capture that feeling, while not losing the feeling of being in constant control of the game.” To capture the musical foundation for the game, Simogo began with a large playlist of music that represented the essence of the project. “It started very differently, with a much more sinister tone,” Flesser tells us. The game’s prototype reflected this darker style — until, one day, an overly energetic pop song from the playlist came into rotation during a playtest. Early concept art for Sayonara Wild Hearts. “It just clicked,” Flesser says. “I literally said [to the team], ‘This is it.’” They began writing original pop songs around this new tone the very next day. And as the new songs came into focus, the prototype’s color scheme began to shift as well. “[The songs] were in hues of purple and pink and blue,” Flesser says. “It painted the game for us, the music.” Go with what your heart tells you and what your gut tells you… Because I think that's the only way that you will get something that feels like it has something to say or that it's an honest piece of work… once you start thinking too much about what you're making and what you're trying to say with it, then there's some kind of intangible magic lost because the project needs to tell you what it is instead of you telling the project what it is. Simon Flesser, Simogo Simogo continued playing with recognizable themes and objects as the team refined characters for Sayonara. “[Characters] are all based on cards from the Major Arcana deck,” Flesser says. The tarot cards also influenced some of the broader conceptual designs and bigger items like the vehicles driven by various game characters. Within the tarot card frame, Sayonara’s distinctive colors and geometric shapes create contrast between characters and the background, providing crisp views as people play through the game’s chapters with taps and swipes. “We needed to work with very simple shapes and distinctive colors because it's just swooshing by… you can't have much detail,” says Flesser. “We worked a lot with the contrast between dangerous stuff, positive stuff, characters, vehicles.” Each of these items was both differently colored and shaped to provide the maximum best possible contrast. Because the game moves so fast, it was imperative to create controls both easy to follow and intuitive to use. As such, the team intentionally kept the controls platform agnostic. This also helps the game live equally at home on a touchscreen, third-party game controller, or Apple TV remote. “We opted for a more swiped base input for gameplay so that the player avatar moves when the player actually moves their finger,” Flesser says. Swipe controls continued to evolve as the team tested prototypes, with the game’s constant camera movements and zooms being a particular challenge. "We definitely learned a lot about feedback in 3D space versus 2D space,” Flesser says. “The same type of movement will feel radically different depending on how far away the camera is [and] how much the camera moves versus how much it rotates around its own axis or around the player avatar axis.” To smooth the experience, Simogo adjusted swipe responsivity and feedback to the camera’s active perspective and zoom level, while keeping the character in the same relative space. Together, this kind of care and design work in harmony to make Sayonara Wild Hearts a standout game on Apple platforms. Flesser had this to say about the game’s journey to Apple Design Award-winner: We always just want to make something that you enjoy yourself. And if you do something you enjoy yourself, then chances are that there might be one or two other people that will enjoy it as well. Sayonara Wild Hearts Download Sayonara Wild Hearts Learn more about Sayonara Wild Hearts on the App Store

  • Enhance SMS-delivered code security with domain-bound codes

    Apple Developer News · Tue, 04 Aug 2020 06:45:08 PDT

    Many websites and apps offer additional login security in the form of SMS-delivered codes. On iPhone, Security Code AutoFill makes it easy for people to quickly supply these codes by offering them in the QuickType bar. On a Mac running macOS Big Sur, Mac Catalyst and AppKit apps can take advantage of this feature as well. Additionally, starting with iOS 14 and macOS Big Sur, we’re adding an extra layer of security to SMS-delivered codes by allowing you to associate codes with a specific web domain. How domain-bound codes work When you use a domain-bound code, AutoFill will suggest the code if — and only if — the domain is a match for the website or one of your app’s associated domains. For example, if you receive an SMS message that ends with @example.com #123456, AutoFill will offer to fill that code when they interact with example.com, any of its subdomains, or an app associated with example.com. If instead you receive an SMS message that ends with @example.net #123456, AutoFill will not offer the code on example.com or in example.com’s associated app. This makes it harder for an attacker to trick someone into entering one-time codes into a phishing site. SMS code displaying in Safari QuickType bar While iOS and macOS will also display regular SMS-delivered codes in addition to domain-bound codes, we encourage everyone employing this authentication method to adopt this standard to provide a more secure experience for people on your website or app. If a message contains no domain information, it will continue to be offered in all relevant fields through AutoFill. How to set up SMS domain-bound codes You can take advantage of domain-bound codes on both websites and apps with associated domains. Set up domain-bound codes for your website In most cases, AutoFill should work automatically on Safari for iOS and macOS Big Sur, and requires no additional information from you. In cases where it does not, you can add the autocomplete=one-time-code attribute to your web page’s text field. This cues Safari to offer applicable codes in that field. Set up domain-bound codes for your app You can support domain-bound codes by providing an associated domain for your app. If you support Universal Links for your domain, or if AutoFill is currently suggesting saved passwords for your domain in your app’s login screens, your app is already associated with your domain. Learn more about supporting associated domains Note: If you’re running into issues when testing your app’s login flows, you may need to provide an additional hint about which fields in your app are one-time code fields. For iOS and Mac Catalyst apps, set the field’s textContentType property to UITextContentType.oneTimeCode. For AppKit apps on macOS, NSTextField has a contentType property that you should set to NSTextContentTypeOneTimeCode. How to format SMS domain-bound codes Once your app or website is set up to receive domain-bound codes, you’ll need to provide a simple addition to the SMS messages you send through your backend service to include both the domain and code. Here’s what the text you’ll send looks like: 123456 is your Example code. @example.com #123456 Everything above the last line of the message is freeform. You're free to customize this part however you like, but it should be something that makes sense to people receiving the code. The last line of this message gives AutoFill on iPhone, iPad, or Mac the information it needs to bind the domain and code together and suggest the code for the appropriate website or app. In order for domain-bound codes to work properly, you must include this information in the last line of the message, and it must contain the domain and code in the correct order. @example.com This is the first part of that last line, and contains the domain of the app or website where you want the code to fill in. Make sure to put a single space after your domain before you begin the segment with your one-time code. #123456 (represents the code 123456) The second part of the last line begins with # and contains the string with your app or website’s one-time code. Improve your SMS-delivered codes Domain-bound codes are straightforward for developers to implement, easy for people using your apps and websites to understand, and add more security to the SMS-delivered codes. You can also learn more about domain-bound codes and the development of the message format in the W3C’s Web Platform Incubator Community Group. Resources Learn more about domain-bound codes Allowing Apps and Websites to Link to Your Content

  • Verify your app’s integrity with the new App Attest API

    Apple Developer News · Mon, 03 Aug 2020 16:58:33 PDT

    Part of the DeviceCheck services, the new App Attest API helps protect against security threats to your apps on iOS 14 or later, reducing fraudulent use of your services. With App Attest, you can generate a special cryptographic key on a device and use it to validate the integrity of your app before your server provides access to sensitive data. Learn more